Rating: 
Summary: Vacuous
Review: I know people who just can't understand why I hated this film. They just LOVED Moulin Rouge, where I literally cringed through it. I trudged on through the film in the hope that it would get better, but it never did. Sure, the dancing is big and that accounts for my 2 star rating, but I found the overall premise to be stupid. The pop culture inspired lyrics were especially annoying. As the Editorial above states, "Nothing is original..." Although that could be said of many films, it has never been more true than with Moulin Rouge. I apparently had difficulty redigesting the material that Moulin Rouge barfed onto the screen. "Oh but it is so original by reweaving the lyrics and cultural references of the modern age into the context of turn of the century Paris." Really? I just found this to be a vacuous waste of film.
Rating: 
Summary: Moulin Rouge
Review: As a previous reviewer said, please sit through the first 15 or so minutes, and you will be rewarded. The director does a great job by creating a state of "suspended reality". Photography and special effects are a treat for the eyes. You will have the experience of a Broadway play. Kidman and McGregor are great together. You'll want to see it again and buy the sound track.
Rating: 
Summary: Mirrors its time
Review: Wretched, incoherent excess for the MTV generations. Ideal for anyone who can't or won't read and whose notion of an intellectual challenge is a video game.
Rating:
Summary: This is one of the greatest movies ever
Review: A movie that totally engulfs you: you laugh, you cry, the music is amazing. It took the flu for me to finally see this movie.. i had seen clips and pieces here and there and never thought I could sit through the entire thing.. Im so glad i did. All of the cast is wonderful.. the music is beautful, and the story is timeless. If you love great broadway plays, you will admire this greatly. If on broadway, this would be my new favorite. Kidman is great, macgregor is equally great, and the supporting cast is marvelous. This is a definate MUST SEE just due to the fact it is not your typical movie, but a journey into music and acting.
Rating:
Summary: A thrilling, audacious masterpiece
Review: I've seen this film 12 times now (8 at the cinema and 4 at home with the DVD) and it is still a great joy and delight to me. If I try and analyse why I'm so in love with it - or why it's such a great film - I end up realising that a logical, critical approach doesn't work, and I'm left with the thought that Moulin Rouge is a modern equivalent to a 30s MGM musical: I almost feel that I'm a closet gay man and that the story of Satine and Christian and the Duke and Harold and Toulouse is, when all is said and done, nothing less than "fabulous". Critical faculties, and the ability to maintain a detached or ironic perspective, are shattered by glamour, pathos, gorgeous orchestral music, truth, beauty, freedom and, above all, love.
In some ways it's easier to see what's wrong with the film rather than what's so good about it: the story is spare and simple (and corny); there's an excess of frenetic cutting (one Australian reviewer likened watching it to being trapped in an elevator with a circus); and some of the more complex scenes (the "Roxanne" sequence, and the massive "Hindi sad diamonds" denouement) almost fall apart under their own weight; but these are minor concerns when placed against the sheer emotionalism and filmic energy of this crazy masterpiece. Baz Luhrmann has defiantly established himself as a genius -- in an audacious pantheon of genius that includes Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Parker and Orson Welles.
An example of Luhrmann's brilliant touch is his deft combination of humour and pathos: right in the middle of the film's funniest scene (the most outrageous, burlesque take on "Like a Virgin" you'll ever see) he cuts to a deathly-pale Satine being injected after fainting (I'm not giving anything away -- it is revealed to us at the beginning that Satine is doomed). The music abruptly changes from the Rogers and Hammerstein-like treatment of "Virgin" to a few plaintive notes on the piano backed by a muted and ominous orchestra, then it's back to the madness of the Duke and Zidler. Another example is during the movie's love theme, "Come What May": we see Eric Satie joined by an ever-increasing number of bald men, sitting around a piano playing a hauntingly sad and spare Satie-ish melody, before we return to the climax of the love song (and once again Luhrmann demonstrates his brilliant touch: this dramatic part of the song is sung in rehearsal, with Satine and the narcoleptic Argentinean in costume, contrasted by numerous extras, stage-hands and sundry others wandering around).
Moulin Rouge is the film where Nicole Kidman really comes into her own. "The Others" has reinforced her standing as an exceptional film actress, but in that film she was playing a restricted, neurotic character. In Moulin Rouge she runs the gamut of emotions from A to Z: she's beautiful, she's sexy, she's doomed, she's in love. She is just as striking when her face is presented to us as a vision of grief and despair, tears running down her cheeks, as when she is resplendent in gorgeous stage costumes or her "seduction outfit".
Nicole is the greatest of the stars but McGregor is very good as the young and idealistic Christian: he has genuine charm when he sings "Your Song" to Satine and there is real pathos with his tears at the shock of Satine's death. Jim Broadbent is perfect as Harold Zidler, the impresario, who is both manipulative and sympathetic. Richard Roxburgh is hilarious as the Duke but is also able to invest the mainly caddish role with real complexity, as evinced by his dejected posture after uttering "My dear, a little frog" to a besotted Satine: while he is the nasty villain - "a powerful man" with a homicidal manservant Warner - he displays some of the vulnerability of being in love. Those four - Satine, Christian, the Duke and Harold, are the main characters, but John Leguizamo is charmingly affecting as Toulouse-Lautrec (another small gripe I have with the scenario is that we are never reminded that Toulouse was a painter and a very great painter at that), and there are some juicy cameos by Garry McDonald (who utters the classic line "I don't think a nun would say that about a hill") and David Wenham, unrecognisable sans beard and with a black wig.
The music is luscious and a real delight: "Nature Boy" is all pathos and even dread; "Your Song" is sweepingly romantic and thrilling; "The Pitch" is spirited mayhem; "One Day I'll Fly Away" is simply stunningly gorgeous; "Elephant Love Medley" is excitingly surprising as we recognise the post-modernist take on such pop classics as "Heroes" and "I Will Always Love You" (on top of that, Luhrmmann chucks in operatic flourishes willy-nilly); "Like a Virgin" is a burlesque masterpiece; "Come What May" is anthemic, corny and irresistible; and "Hindi Sad Diamonds" is a thumping dance track set against the most stunning tableau you'll ever see staged.
It's important to get the DVD for the quality of sound and vision. The extras are many and good but nothing beats just sitting down again, to share with another friend, the joy of this great movie. I'm looking forward to the next "screening" already!
Rating:
Summary: An amazing work of art and entertainment
Review: I read some of the terrible reviews of this film and frankly cannot fathom them. This movie was one of the most moving, entertaining, gloriously filmed spectacles that I have ever seen. I own over 150 movies on DVD and this is the only one that has ever motivated me to write a recommendation. I urge everyone to at least give it a try.
Rating:
Summary: breathtaking!
Review: i was merely intrigued when i saw this movie at our local movie-renting place about two months ago, so my dad rented it for me.i thought it would be a pleasant romp thought nineteenth-century montmartre. boy was i wrong! it is the delicious, over-the-top, all-singing, all-dancing story of christian and satine and their love. a brash, electrifying journey through the moulin rouge, a high-end whorehouse where the rich would come to play. ewan mcgregor is, in a word: amazing. his voice, his accent, his acting ability. he is the ultimate embodiment of christian. and what can i say about nicole kidman that hasn't been said before? she has a beautiful voice, and was the perfect casting choice as satine. i cannot stop watching this movie. i only wish i had seen it in the theatres! the DVD more than makes up for that, however. a lush two-disc set, it boasts an impressive "behind the red curtain" feature that informs the viewer how a certain scene was made as well as everything from interviews with cast members to the music video for the ever-popular "lady marmalade" (which, incidentally, was, in my opinion, the only drawback to the film). there are cut scenes, director commentary, stories on how "moulin rouge" came to be, etc, etc... baz luhrmann is a genius for having put this film together and for not caring about the critiscm (totally unwarranted, if i may say so) it received, and will probably continue to receive. if you enjoy your more run-of-the-mill musicals, i doubt this film will interest you. however, if you have an open mind and are willing to experience something new, this film is for you. if i could give it ten stars, i would! =)
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular! Spectacular!
Review: Wow! immedietly when the movie begins you're entralled, and the first entrance to the club is astounding!!!! The music is AWESOME! this is a movie for musical lovers. The dances were great the costumes were gorgeous, Moulin Rouge should be an oscar winning film!
Rating:
Summary: Great Idea Undermined by Bad Editing
Review: There are a lot of great ideas that inspired Moulin Rouge: a love of musicals, the use of 1900 Paris as the seedy backdrop to a love story, the pairing of Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, a love of pop-culture, etc. However, it's totally undermined by editing. The movie depends entirely on "attention deficit" editing - songs are never completed, you never get more than a few seconds of a dance scene, the dialogue goes so fast you can't appreciate anything, etc. At one point, I got dizzy from watching it. I sympathize with those that love the movie's spoectacles,and I myself am a lover of unusual art (like Cecil Taylor's music), but I literally couldn't watch this movie because it made my head spin. I think the director simply went overboard with this one. Some of the jumpy editing may have made it exhilirating, but when the entire movie is that way, most people will leave with a bad taste. So be warned: the movie is very, very jumpy. If you can deal with that, you'll love it. Otherwise, avoid this one.
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular! Spectacular!
Review: Musical, video clip, pop opera, truth, beauty, freedom, love, all in this colorful motion picture which is the greatest spectacle of the year and one of the most contemporary films of all time.
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