Still trying to mull it over

Rating: 7/10 (6 June 2001)

I must admit, I'm a sucker for musicals so my opinion is distinctly biased. If you get p***ed off when characters in a movie break into song, you probably won't like my review.
Music: Of course, the music is anachronistic which becomes a bit of an inside joke. Christian (played by Ewan McGregor) is hailed as a brilliant original modern poet while spouting lines from popular music written two generations after 1900. Of course we recognize them as top ten hits. The Bohemians at the end of their summer of love (1899) find them strikingly new and original.
Most of the musical production numbers are medleys of songs appropriated from popular culture. Madonna, Cole Porter, The Beatles, Nirvana and Sting get pulled out of context and used in weird ways. This is not new. Bing Crosby and Fred Astare managed to recycle more than 20 Irving Berlin songs in Blue Skies. In most of the cases the songs get put through the wringer and come out as completely new compositions. In some places the two songs are mixed into contrasting harmonies and lyrics that actually work well. In other places you end up with a jumbled mish-mash of songs that don't really fit well together and spoil the effect. In other cases the transformations demonstrate a twisted sense of black humor. (Jim Broadbent's and Gary Oldman's dramatic duet of "Like a Virgin" complete with chorus line is worth about half the price of admission.)
Plot: Perhaps I'm a bit spoiled but the plot and the scripting seemed to be one of the weaker parts of this movie. Not only was the music appropriated, but the script in places was appropriated as well. The script alternates between slapstick and tragedy. If you've been raised on too much opera, the movie keeps you guessing, is it heading towards Tosca or La Boheme? The climax comes right out of Charlie Chaplin and then dumps you right into Verdi with a sweet Hallmark tag at the end.
I suspect this is a movie that most people either love or hate. I'm a bit in the middle. As a musical, this certainly isn't Sound of Music and it isn't even Evita. The closest musical I can compare it to is Bob Fosse's almost-biography All That Jazz which is another movie that viewers either love or hate. I suspect that All That Jazz would be a good barometer for determining if you want to see Moulin Rouge. If you thought All That Jazz was worth watching, then you would probably appreciate Moulin Rouge. If you find that self-referential and critical musicals are overly self-indulgent, then you probably should skip Moulin Rouge.