Customer Reviews
A Treat For Romance Lovers... 
2008-09-18
Moulin Rouge is a movie that you really can't "sort of like." Either you do, or you don't. Warning: it can be taken to come off as a little corny, but as long as you can get past that...the movie is FABULOUS! The songs are "on point," the acting is commendable, and the story...wow, well you'll just have to see the movie for yourself!
A must have! 
2008-09-16
If you are looking for a movie filled with fun, romance and music, this is the movie for you! Although set in 1899 France, the story takes on a very modern feel with songs that everyone knows and loves. It will have you laughing, crying, singing and falling in love over and over again.
What were they thinking? 
2008-09-05
I bought this DVD at the urging of a trusted reviewer. While I was entranced by the imaginative cuts and effects during the beginning credits, my companion and I were immediately turned off by the extreme over-acting. Yes, I've been cautioned that this technique was used to satisfy the intended theatrical effect. However, in my opinion, the desired effect was dreadful, distracting, and irritating. Only the first 10 minutes of my DVD was ever touched by a laser. Unless you're a masochist, save your money.
Super-Amazing! 2008-08-25
I'm a music fan. I love all tipes of music, but did not like show music so much. After watching Moulin Rouge, that perception changed. Moulin Rouge has the best soundtrack ever, and after watching it more than 5 times, I decided to get the two soundtracks to the movie. Any music fans out there, Moulin Rouge is one of the best musicals ever!!
Moulin Rouge 2008-08-22
This movie/musical was very well made. it wasn't annoying like most musicals are. Kidman and McGregor were perfect as the leads, who knew those two could sing!
Awesome 2008-08-17
A spectacle beyond anything you've ever witnessed. An experience beyond everything you've ever imagined. Behind the red velvet curtain, the ultimate seduction of your senses is about to begin. Welcome to the Moulin Rouge! Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor sing, dance and scale the heights of passionate abandon in the year's most talked-about movie from visionary director Baz Luhrmann (William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, Strictly Ballroom). Enter a tantalizing world that celebrates truth, beauty, freedom and above all things, love.
Loves It! 2008-06-27
I love this movie. I know a lot of people think it's weird, but they obviously just don't get it. Great story line.
And the star goes to..... 2008-06-23
.....Nicole Kidman's hair extensions, which outperformed the
majority of this woefully inept cast.
Genius? High art? Spiritually infused with symbolism? Evidently
I needed to be drinking something stronger than I was when I
first viewed this film. Maybe there was a method behind the
film's references to absynthe after all.
Two things drive a good film: plot and character. When both
are developed properly and the right actors are chosen, movie
magic occurs. For me, this film had the potential to create
magic, but failed miserably due to a directorial lack of focus and
unbelievably poor casting. To be sure, the sets are grand and
the costumes visually stunning. However, the choppy editing,
sophomoric musical score and trite story line would have been far
more palatable--and forgivable--had it not been for the deplorable
acting.
Many reviews have cited Nicole Kidman as the "sexy" "erotic"
"passionate" centerpiece of the film. For me, this tall, skinny,
anemic woman with protruding gums and motionless facial
features had all the sex appeal of a wet noodle. When I think of
courtesans, I picture smouldering, voluptuous women whose
eroticism stems from a raw and steely core hardened by worldly
excess and exploitation. Women who are a bit rough around the edges.
Kidman and Luhrmann needed to take a page out of Jessica Rabbit's
book and watch Dr. Frank N. Furter come down the elevator shaft a few
times before fashioning Kidman's high class [...], who was too busy
looking "pretty" on a swing to truly afford the character any depth or soul.
Adding to Satine's lack of proper characterization is Kidman's lousy
acting. Her performance first begins to completely unravel during the
"Rhythm of the Night" scene, in which she awkwardly chirps, trills, and
trapses around the club shaking her ostrich feathers in the face of the
lead. It's hard to determine just who she's channeling here, but it appears
to be a combination of Carmen Miranda, Gloria Estefan, and Lucille Ball
on crack. The film unravels further as she rolls around on the floor in some
fake, cheesy, orgasmic trance as Ewan McGregor recites cliched lines from
"Your Song," which supposedly send her into some freakish sexual frenzy.
(At this point in the film her accent is quasi-American but will morph into
something like British later in the film).
Continuing scenes are intermittantly punctuated by a lot of fake hacking and
coughing and breaking out into song, which showcases a weak voice by traditional
blockbuster musical standards. (In other words, your not gonna get the goose
bumps that break out when you hear Jennifer Hudson sing.) After a few extremely
contrived crying scenes at the end of the film (one of which must have relied on
glycerine and amonia), Kidman pulls out a dying scene so ridiculous and prolonged
that I thought the protagonist was going to die before she did (there's a cinematic
opportunity that was missed!). The only dying scene that rivals the cheesiness of
Kidman's death in Moulin Rouge! is Sophia Coppola dying in Godfather III. Folks,
it's that bad.
Ewan McGregor as the lovestruck poet is not entirely terrible, but he's
not spectacular either. Throughout the film, the young man in the monkey
suit attempts to win the affections of Kidman's holy [...] (archetypes,
people, archetypes) with trite endearments such as.....breaking into song.
His vocal talents are a bit stronger than Kidman's, although the delivery is
somewhat flat. While I truly do feel his anguish at the end of the film when
Satine chokes out her last breath, I do not witness the incredible chemistry
between the two actors so many others do. For example, at the crescendo of
the "Elephant Medley" when the two are facing each other in the entrance to
the, umm, "Elephant Room," their hands are at their sides while they're singing!
At a moment when both lovers needed to passionately embrace at the
completion of a very important medley that tells their "STORY," the actors
were too busy concentrating on hitting the high notes of the songs to stay
completely in character. Knitpicky, you say? For me, this obvious oversight
epitomizes the lack of passion and chemistry between the two throughout the
film. They do not, by any means, raise the room temperature with their sizzle.
As for John Leguizamo's midget artist with a speech impediment,
I found the performance goofy and embarrassing. All anyone can
do is pray that his "To Wong Foo" days are not completely over and
that he hasn't completely degenerated to just a second rate supporting
goon in high budget disasters like this one.
For those of you still on the fence about seeing this movie, I heartily
recommend you do. A film that invites this much discussion and
passionate debate is worth seeing, if for no other reason than to
become part of the ongoing dialogue. Is this film phenomenal? Hardly.
Did it deserve an Oscar? Please. Do the lead actors do the story, sets
and costumes justice? No. Did it convince many members of film-going
audiences over the last seven years that all they need is love? Allegedly.
And while it is my contention that other films have done a far better job
of packaging and selling the "love" construction, Moulin Rouge! retains a
heavily-contested yet no less viable place in the ongoing conversation
of how it should appear on screen.
Broadway in you own living room 2008-06-09
One of the Best movies of it's year.
Every moment, sink or swim, feels infused with love of showmanship, love of highwire creativity and love for the cinema itself. Moulin Rouge is probably not a perfect film, but the cinema is first and foremost a visual medium.
Jody Bissoon
Those with ADD Will Love It... 2008-05-10
For people whose attention span can be measured only in nanoseconds, this movie must be a treat--a perpetual motion machine, never giving the viewer time to think, otherwise the poor soul might perceive what an emptiness it all is. The generation who grew up on video games and MTV no doubt loved it (or did it move too slow for them?), but we over-40 dinosaurs found the kaleidoscopic nonsense a bit much, not to mention the tomfoolery of transplanting pop music standards into the Paris of 1900. Granted, Nicole Kidman singing 'Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend' was rather amusing, but most of the songs were put over badly, and the attempt to mine humor from this--the foppish men singing 'Like a Virgin' comes to mind--failed to get a laugh out of me, sorry. I rather like Ewan McGregor, but the poor chap was all at sea in this mess, and God knows he sure never be allowed to sing, ever, nor should anyone, under penalty of long imprisonment, be allowed to sing (or quote) Elton John's 'Your Song' on film, to the end of time. (There are, heaven knows, hundreds of much better 'I really love you, baby' songs in the pop reportoire, and I don't think Sir (or Madame?) Elton needs any extra cash at this point.) Toulouse-Lautrec and his entourage were, I gather, supposed to provide some Three Stooges style comic relief throughout, but they were annoying as all get-out. The movie gives the impression of being designed by a committee, with the members decided that huge profits could be repeated by combining two sexy stars (Kidman and McGregor), constant sexual innuendo (about as subtle as a wounded grizzly), songs that everyone was familiar with (whether the songs were good or not, or fit the historical period), loads of color and filters, and a spastic camera, topped off with a film editor who must've drunk a cocktail of coffee and speed (with a side dish of Ecstasy).
Watching the very talented Jim Broadbent made me a little nostalgic for another (and a thousand times better) musical film in which he shone, Topsy-Turvy, with him as operetta composer William Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame), in a movie that wonderfully evoked the late Victorian theatre world (and included some fabulous songs, of course). Moulin Rouge did not evoke the Paris cabaret scene of 1900, rather, it put the scene on LSD and then set fire to it. The 1952 John Huston film Moulin Rouge, though not a five-star classic, does a decent job of capturing that world (and, thank heavens, no horrible songs and off-key singers). Maybe someone trying to buy or rent this 2001 bit of mess will, by accident, pick up Huston's film instead.
