Trick for knowing if you will enjoy this movie

When I first saw this movie in the theatre, I was asked if it was good and this is what I said:

"Early on in the movie, one of the characters says 'suddenly an unconscious Argentinian fell through my ceiling'. If you laugh at this line in context, you will enjoy the movie. If not, you may as well leave as this is not the movie for you."

Moulin Rouge is not for everyone. Objectively, it's not a great movie. The whole thing is basically a high budget bad camp skit: thin unoriginal plot, terrible dialogue, overzealous acting, singing, and editing. I have no interest in defending the quality of this movie, although I always figured a lot of the stuff people criticize about Moulin Rouge was entirely intentional. It knows its a bad camp skit - or at least Ewan MacGregor seems to - and it is a mistake to take it too seriously.

I love a bad camp skit. I've seen some. I've written some. So I loved Moulin Rouge when I saw it in the theatre and I still get a kick out of watching it - usually with some girl friends and a significant amount of either chocolate or wine.

I loved the clichéed dialogue and way the music is totally anachronistic. It's kind of pantomime like - comedic and self aware. It grabs the low hanging jokes and runs with them, even becomes slapstick at some point. The hitman joins the dancers because his gun flew across the stage and he has to retrieve it so he can shoot Christian. It's delightfully awful and generally makes no sense.

Also, when Ewan MacGregor opened his mouth and started belting out Elton John, I kind of fell in love...

All of these qualities, I think are signaled in that initial line, so if you like this movie and what to show it to someone, watch them when you get to that part. If they laugh, you have found a fellow fan. If they look confused and say "what?!", you may need to find alternate evening plans.