Thus begins the Moulin Rouge!-ification of Fitzgerald's source material: Like the protagonist of that film (Luhrmann's third, and most successful), this Nick self-identifies as a writer, and his expository voiceover is frequently underlined by having his words appear on the screen as he utters them. Other elements are imported, too, such as the pull-away shots from characters perched in windows to magical-miniature cityscapes. But Luhrmann's latest resembles Moulin Rouge! most obviously in its peculiar synthesis of overzealous showmanship and half-hearted tragedy. In place of Satine's Golden Elephant we have Gatsby's Magic-Kingdom mansion, and in place of Mildly Doomed Nicole Kidman we have Mildly Doomed Leonardo DiCaprio.

It's worth noting here that DiCaprio is in fact awfully good as Gatsby, charming yet uncertain, magnetic yet self-effacing. He's good when the movie is at its most bombastic—his onscreen introduction is accompanied by fireworks and the crescendo of "Rhapsody in Blue"—and he's good on the infrequent occasions it slows down, as when Nick offers to invite Daisy over for tea as a "favor" to him, and he hears the word as if for the first time. DiCaprio could have been terrific if this were a boffo, over-the-top musical entertainment (an adaptation, say, of 42nd Street), or if it were a subdued fable of loss and regret (such as, I don't know, The Great Gatsby?). But Luhrmann's impossibly ill-conceived hybrid of the two is beyond the talent of any actor to make sense of.

At least DiCaprio's is the only genuinely memorable performance wasted by the film. Joel Edgerton is solid (at times a bit too solid) as Tom Buchanan, and Elizabeth Debicki looks the part of Jordan Baker even if she lacks the requisite languor. (Like everyone else in the film, she has the feel of a 33 1/3 rpm record being played at 78.) Maguire is profoundly forgettable as Nick, his existential trauma indiscernible from adolescent ennui. And Carey Mulligan is a minor disaster as Daisy, though it's hard to lay the blame at the actress's feet. It is with her character that Luhrmann most clearly displays his incomprehension of the work he's adapting—or perhaps, more cynically, his assumption that audiences would be unable to comprehend it. This Daisy is indecisive rather than "careless," a co-victim in the story's central tragedy rather than its principal architect, a smash-ee rather than smasher. Among other consequences, this transformation renders Fitzgerald's closing judgment on the Buchanans (which Luhrmann reproduces faithfully) all but meaningless.

None of which is to say that The Great Gatsby is a bad movie in the most conventional, will-I-want-my-money-back sense. Luhrmann is, as always, a dazzling ringmaster, and his movie is intermittently quite entertaining. The score (on which he collaborated with executive producer Jay-Z) is imaginative and ecumenical, making evocative use of Lana Del Rey's "Young and Beautiful" and a cover of "Back to Black" by Beyoncé and Andre 3000. Many of the gags offered up are rather amusing, from Gatsby's explosive entrance to an over-enthusiastic flower purchase to a clever segue between Cole Porter's "Let's Misbehave" and Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'." The problem is that when the movie is entertaining it's not Gatsby, and when it's Gatsby it's not entertaining.