I feel confident saying you've never seen anything like Moulin Rouge before. Odd, since it's that oldest of genres, the classic Hollywood musical. Like musicals from the Golden Age, it combines song standards of recent years with dancing and comedy and romance . . . On the other hand, it's got a visual style wildly, flamboyantly unlike any musical that preceded it.

The picture didn't win me over right away. For its first astonishing 20 or 30 minutes it's a maniacal barrage of can-can girls, shrieking dwarves and garish camera tricks to the tune of Madonna and Nirvana and Rodgers & Hammerstein. Too much, in my opinion. I was overwhelmed, my jaw dropping lower and lower as I wondered if it would ever stop.

It didn't quite stop, but it slowed down here and there, first finding its rhythm in a comic, romantic--and of course musical--scene between Ewen McGregor as an English writer new to bohemian Paris and Satine (Nicole Kidman) a consumptive courtesan and headliner at the famous Moulin Rouge nightclub in Montmartre.

Director Baz Luhrmann previously brought us the terrific Strictly Ballroom and the misconceived Romeo + Juliet. If Moulin Rouge isn't quite as sprightly and entertaining as his first film, neither is it as messy as his second. It may be a bit too long, and it may be too antic for some tastes, but try to keep from smiling during the can-can number about the Indian sitar player, or when Jim Broadbent and Richard Roxburgh sing "Like a Virgin" to one another. Any movie that endeavors to revive the movie musical has its heart in the right place, and any movie that stages The Police's "Roxanne" as a tango has an admirable kind of audacity.

I can't promise you'll love Moulin Rouge, but if you're looking for a unique movie experience I can promise that Moulin Rouge will deliver one. I leave the choice up to you.