Sunday, February 28, 2010

Nine - A Review

I have wanted to watch this movie ever since I watched the trailer.
Again, this is another living proof of how Hollywood has this ability to blow things out of proportion with its trailers.


From the director of Chicago, the heavy- weights with the likes of Oscar winner Marion Cotillard and Danile Day-Lewis, the sexy Penelope Cruz, the fantastic singer Nicole Kidman from Moulin Rouge, Hollywood leading lady Kate Hudson, M from 007 Dame Judi Dench and legend Sophia Loren, one expects a great deal of performance from Nine.


So what happened? It sucked.
This is what happen when you crammed too many big stars into 2 hours with barely enough time for any character to develop properly. All we get to see is how tormented Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) was, trying to come up with a script for a movie. And being the perverted man he was, he turned to ladies for inspiration. The ladies were of course the critical acclaimed row of fantastic actresses in their very own right. The wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard), the mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), the ex flame Claudia (Nicole Kidman), the fantasy Stephanie (Kate Hudson), the childhood idol Sereghina (Fergie), the mother (Sophia Loren) and the tailor Lilli (Dame Judi Dench).


All these fantastic actresses only got one song, at most, two songs, to sing in the two hour plus movie. Daniel Day-Lewis, whom in my humble opinion, cannot sing, got to sing quite a number of songs. And being a musical, I perfectly understood when actors suddenly burst into songs. But the way the songs were presented in this movie was really weird. I'd rather the songs be incorporated into the story where the dances are actually relevant. This movie's sole reason for a dance to occur is in Guido's old twisted desperate mind. The dances and the songs were his imagination, which make no sense.


If Nine won the Oscar for costume design, I am so going to boo the Academy committee. The costumes weren't even fantastic. It was just fancy. Nothing that beats the like of Moulin Rouge or Chicago. And none of the songs were memorable, except one by Fergie. But her part was so small that Sereghina was barely memorable.


But I do have to credit Marion Cotillard for portraying the sadness of an abandoned wife so perfectly.


And Judi Dench who didn't even sing but was so fantastically entertaining by only saying the words of a song. And Penelope Cruz's dance at the beginning of the movie was so sexy and alluring even a straight gal like myself think that she is hot!


Nicole Kidman and Kate Hudson however, barely leave any impression.


Ratings : 6/10. Not bad compared to other films, but epic failure when coming from a cast and crew so great. Great acting and execution fails in the hand of poor directing and screenwriting.

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