Review: 'Carmen' can't match sizzle of its two hot leads

Not musical enough to be a musical and not daring enough to be considered truly daring, "Carmen" is slightly adrift, in need of something to attach to, something to help it find its fully realized self. "Carmen" needs Baz.

Baz Luhrmann, wildman director of "Moulin Rouge!" and "Elvis," is the spice this dry, dusty take on Georges Bizet's 1875 opera needs. And if not Baz himself at least his attitude, his throw-anything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks sense of gusto, which would help awaken this sleepy drama that, despite its superhot leads, can't locate its beating heart.

Those leads are Melissa Barrera ("In the Heights" and the last two "Scream" movies) and internet boyfriend Paul Mescal, fresh off his Oscar nomination for last year's "Aftersun." They play a pair who meets up at the U.S./Mexico border — she's Carmen, who is crossing over into America, he's Aidan, a freelance border patrolman and former Marine who goes rogue after a shooting — and wind up on the lam together, seeking freedom and salvation from their pasts and/or their sins.

Choreographer-turned-filmmaker Benjamin Millepied's camera loves his leads, a super attractive pair that looks great on screen. But their passion is only skin deep, and the story stalls out when Carmen and Aidan arrive at a nightclub in a desert town where Carmen meets up with a mother figure (Rossy de Palma) and dance attempts to fill in the widescreen, sand swept gaps in the screenplay.

It half-works but never catches fire, and is lacking in the very elements — truth, beauty, freedom, love — it seeks to espouse. There are moments when the film is transcendent, where Jörg Widmer's camerawork and the score by Nicholas Britell ("Succession") take something as seemingly everyday as a highway superstructure and illuminate it for the modern marvel it truly is. But those moments are fleeting, tripped up by a screenplay that feels like it was written by two left feet.

'Carmen'

GRADE: C

Rated R: for language, some violence and nudity

Running time: 116 minutes

In theaters

agraham@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @grahamorama