Metacritic reviews

It's a wonderful postmodern hug of a movie, and never once do you not know you're watching a movie.

This thing moves brilliantly, sparkling like nothing we've seen domestically since "The Wiz" or "Xanadu."

The movie is all color and music, sound and motion, kinetic energy, broad strokes, operatic excess.

The film dances; the heart sings.

It's impossible to watch this beautifully chaotic, excessive movie impassively. You'll either embrace what Luhrmann has done here or run out of the theater, holding your head.

You get faux feelings -- but faux of the highest, giddiest order.

You can go with it or resist it, be exhilarated or worn out. But forgetting the experience is not one of your options.

Consistently runs the danger of substituting cool but ultra-hyper, modern special effects for boring old human sentiment.

The film musical is at the moment an even more devitalized art form than the Broadway musical. But Moulin Rouge doesn't revive it. It only rearranges the bones.

It wants to be like no other movie you've ever seen. It's more like every movie you've ever seen.