'Idlewild' (R) (out of four)

I loved just about every minute of this movie. And yet, I still don't have the foggiest clue what it was about.

"Idlewild" is one of those rare movies that will split audiences into two passionate camps of disagreement -- ripping the realists from the surrealists, the escapists from the art lovers, the freewheeling from the logical.

It's a chasm that's been revealed several times over the past few years. For the realists, you have movies like "Crash," "Walk the Line" and even this year's "Superman Returns" and "World Trade Center."

In the other corner you have such films as the moody "Miami Vice," the stylized "Brick," the cerebral "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and the romanticized requiem of "A Prairie Home Companion." These are not films that play out in linear fashion nor polish their surface to give it that glimmer of reality, but they bend the world as they see fit.

And such is "Idlewild," the long-awaited film by the two voices behind the musical group OutKast, a crazy, convoluted, haphazard, exercise in not-so-structured chaos. Some have debated why it took so long for this film to finally make its way to the big screen, about whether the delay was a sign that its makers were trying to tighten or even salvage a disaster.

But in its final form, "Idlewild" seems less like a disaster than a meticulously crafted experiment, and they took more time, it seems, because they wanted to milk the most out of each moment. While the plot doesn't really make a lick of sense, every inch of screen space and every second of time is alive with the sheer magic of moviemaking. It's like a gorgeous set design built for an incomprehensible play or a brilliantly produced melody accompanied by gibberish.

It all starts as a period piece, a movie about the seedy underbelly of a speakeasy in the South during the time of prohibition. Terrence Howard, the brilliant young actor who hits another grand slam here as a rather despicable figure, plays the hired goon of the local mafia leader. When he decides he wants power, he seizes it from his mentor with the aid of a few bullets.

Okay, so that's one story. Playing out along side that is the tale of Percival (Andre Benjamin), the mortician's son, a brilliant piano player discouraged by his father from pursuing his passion. He crosses paths with Angel (Paula Patton), a big-league singer visiting from out of town who seems a bit too nervous about performing her first show.

Fortunately, with Percival's help, she lights the stage on fire.

All around these four are intersecting subplots, from the speakeasy's clientele to the stooge of a manager (Big Boi) who continues to be robbed blind by Howard's character while losing his wife due to alcohol and a series of affairs.

And music. There is always music -- sometimes in the service of the story, other times as a way of stopping the show completely -- merging from something moody to something playful, sexy or foreboding.

Somehow, amid this chaos, director Bryan Barber jumps between these varying songs and stories so quickly one doesn't quite have time to notice. Early on, we have the suspense of "Chinatown" or "The Godfather." Later, we have the dancing one might expect from "Chicago" and the sheer lunacy of "Moulin Rouge." Then flash forward to a road trip reminiscent of "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" and sprinkle in slow-motion love scenes straight out of a Cameron Crowe romance.

Now jump between decades and musical styles, between shocking scenes of blood and dazzling scenes of white tap shoes and imagine that everything's moving so quickly that it's nearly impossible to keep up with.

That's what this is -- something incredibly flawed and audacious, the kind of mistake made big by someone too in love with the movies to fail small. And when artists have this much fun doing just about anything, it's kind of hard not to have just a little bit of fun watching them do it.