"Personally I think it's meaningless"

Rating: 2/10 (4 October 2000)

Imagine the most pretentious sixth form art student in existence. Multiply it by a thousand. Now picture the indulgent scribblings in the back of his copybook, hurled upon celluloid and coated with vomit. And, as Ewan McGregor said in Trainspotting, "you're still nowhere near".
McGregor himself gets top billing in Velvet Goldmine, though only plays a supporting role. He portrays Curt Wild, witless parody of Iggy Pop. We're told Wild is from the US, which is helpful as judging from McGregor's accent it could be anywhere. A fine actor, he unfortunately takes the same tack as in The Phantom Menace - i.e. every time he says a line, a smirk passes his lips. He's not taking it seriously, and most of the others involved aren't either.
Velvet Goldmine has a terrible reputation and I was all ready to give it a fair chance. I can usually find some merit in derided films, even Batman & Robin possessed thirty seconds that wasn't completely unwatchable. Other 90s superturkeys such as North, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and The Avengers contained the odd moment that stirred you from a comatose position. But Velvet Goldmine engenders not a second of interest throughout its overlong two hours duration. Even the shock tactic of nudity bores with it's indulgent direction, and I have to concur that it's reputation is fully deserved.
A juvenile, exaggerated Bowie pastiche, it begins with an indecipherable prologue that links the story of glitter-spreading UFOs with the birthline of Oscar Wilde (No, I'm not making it up). This is stapled together by a Janet McTeer narration, poor thing, who must deliver some of the most ham-fisted; navel-gazing dirge ever put to paper.
Christian Bale is a reporter who has an exclusive revelation up his sleeve - one which he shouts out in full range of other reporters, which kind of defeats the purpose somewhat. Anyway, his job is to uncover the secret life of Brian Slade, played reasonably by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. While Meyers (or his occasional vocal double, Thom Yorke of Radiohead) has an okay voice, the original material (sample lyric: "like a peppermint eaten away, will I fight, will I swagger, will I sway?" - and that's one of the better ones) is made to look even weaker by having original period tunes in the soundtrack.
This is a film which begins "Although what you are about to see is a work of fiction, it should nevertheless be played at full volume", which is about as far up your own back passage as you can get. The title is meaningless within the film, and only exists as it turns out to be a Bowie album track. Oh, that's okay then. Just another indulgence to add to the mix. Writer/director Todd Haynes described this film as being like the effects of drugs. If that means meandering, banal and irritating, then he's succeeded. One of the very few times I've been forced to use my "2" vote, I was staggered to find that, at date of writing, this has over an average 6/10 on the IMDb. There's a moment in the middle of the film where Christian Bale is caught by his parents engaging in a solo sexual activity. By a staggering coincidence, that activity also sums up this film...