Moulin Rouge! (2001)

Rating: 40%
Almost 12 years ago, my family and I tried to go on a trip in the mountains over the weekend. We ended up not going because we were lost or the weather was bad or something like that, (I can't remember) so we went to see Atlantis: The Lost Empire in theaters instead. On the way home from seeing the movie, our parents put in the soundtrack for Moulin Rouge on the car's cd player where while enjoying some crazy yet lovable music, our parents explained how the movie is about the love between these two particular characters. Since we were still young at the time, they only showed us a couple particular scenes of the movie, mostly ones that contained the music we really loved from the soundtrack. It wasn't until about two ago that I finally fully saw the movie for myself. At the time I wasn't much of a skeptical man when it came to film so while I found a lot of it weird, I still loved the music, story and movie all around. But a couple months ago, while I was still working on my Disney marathon and trying to reach movie review # 200 at the same time, I saw that the Nostalgia Critic made a 44 minute video review of the film. After seeing it a couple of times, I finally got myself to see it again for myself last Monday. So now that I've grown up and I know better when it comes to being more skeptical when it comes to film, I present to you my own opinion about this film.

Plot: The film is narrated by the now depressed main character, Christian. A year before, he moved to Paris to become a writer. He joins a group who are trying to promote their play "Spectacular Spectacular" where they go to the Moulin Rogue in order to try to get their play in the air. They get Christian to show his work to the star courtesan, Satine who mistakes him as the Duke of Monroth whom she's trying to sleep with to become an actress. Through a mix up, the group and Satine get the Duke to fund "Spectacular Spectacular" where Satine becomes the lead actress for the show. Throughout working on the show, Christian and Satine fall in love and form a secret relationship against the Duke who continues to try to have Satine.

This is an odd movie. I mean with just the beginning you have all these weird instruments and characters from the group Christian joins, and at the Moulin Rogue you have all of these super fast cuts when it comes to the editing, and there's a whole bunch of random things popping right in front of you. And there's no hiding it, the story is not that unique. And not a lot of people appreciated that they used a whole bunch of other people's song mixed together to form most of the numbers they had. And it did have quite a few plot holes such as *WARNING SPOILERS* 1) now this hole I mostly noticed from the Nostalgia Critic video, but even then, I have to completely agree on; they don't explain why that one woman who hinted that Christian and Satine were having an affair to the Duke didn't want them together. although what the Nostalgia Critic left out was how the rest of the film, she does blend back into the crowd like she didn't do anything.  and 2) Now even though I still liked the story as a kid, what bugged me then and now was why Satine didn't just tell Christian she's dying and the Duke wants him killed so they could figure out something. As a kid, I was like "whatever, I still like the story" but now that I've grown up, it drives me crazy that she did something that stupid. I mean it's bad enough they won't be together forever now that she's dying but giving in to the Duke because of that is just unbelievably stupid. *END OF SPOILERS* But...at the same time it's sort of a likable film. I mean of coarse the plot is unoriginal and stupid, but somehow you do enjoy the love story anyway. Part of it has to do with the love song "Come what may" which I'll get to. And while a lot of it is just weird stuff popping right in front of you and mixed songs, you may be able to enjoy seeing that. So while this movie is no Sound of Music, Sweeney Todd, Wizard of Oz or even Wicked if they ever made a movie or TV special or something (we can only hope), in a partly reasonable yet completely ridiculous way, it's something we can enjoy not matter how bad it is.

Actor/Characters:
Ewan McGregor/Christian: Personally, I liked McGregor's acting. I mean I do agree that his moment where he was crying did sound more like he was laughing, but at the same time I thought that was very well done. And while his voice could be annoying after a while, I think at the same time that he has a really good singing voice (way better than mine anyway)
Nicole Kidman/Satine: Now I'm not saying that she didn't do a good job, cause she did have her good parts. But I have to admit, there is some weird stuff she does where I do find it a raise in the eyebrow that she was nominated for best actress. and even then, I don't agree to it because, just as the story was unoriginal, Satine was no Natalie Portman's character in Black Swan herself.
Richard Roxburgh/The Duke: Now I'm going to be honest. What I'm saying is based on what is explained in the Nostalgia Critic review, but let's face it: he pointed out something that we should tell people who haven't seen this film about. The Duke is a messed up character. I don't want to spoil the film for those who haven't seen it and don't want to know just yet, but know at the least that The Duke will creep you out on a couple of scenes.

Music: Well even though most of the music is just mixes of songs that we already know. But most of them, are really fun. "The Can-Can song", "The Pitch", "Hindi Sad Diamonds", not to mention how so many of us especially love "El Tango de Roxanne". But at the same time we get really weird songs like "Like a Virgin". But what really helps when it comes to liking the romance in this movie, is the love song "Come What May". While the title is based a little bit from Shakespeare, the song itself is original. So you partly like it just because we at least have ONE song that they came up with on their own, but after that, you may find out that the song itself is actually really good. As for the score, I thought it was nice.

Editing: Now the editing itself has mixed results. Generally it's not good because it's probably too fast. a lot of the shots last less than 5-10 seconds, sometimes it's not even a split second. Which I'm generally okay with because most of it is the case when it comes to scenes like the first time we're in the Moulin Rogue because it helped make what was happening fun to watch in a way. And while most of the later shots are slower but not by much, I thought it worked as long as the cuts weren't stupid fast which they mostly weren't during the rest of the film. But my issue was mostly how they decided to hint what happens later in the film at later moments by showing a piece of footage at a random time. For example, *WARNING SPOILERS* when he get the first close-up of Satine, there's a brief point where they cross-dissolve between that shot and a shot for when she is dying during the end of the film. Then later, while they do "Come What May" There's a moment where they show two seconds of the shot where that woman revels Christian and Satine's affair to the Duke and this happens...about a minute before they actually show her hinting it. *END OF SPOILERS* They were just pointless choices of editing that didn't really work to me.

And that's my review of Moulin Rouge. While the story is cheesy, some of the characters are strange, hardly any of the songs were anything more than mixing other people's songs and we get a lot of moments that are just messed up, we do get an okay love movie and some awesome musical moments that can get you to enjoy the film anyway.