Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Nine

This is topic Nine - The Musical in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 01-08-2010, 09:48 PM:

This is not a good movie. It is in fact a terrible movie, one of the worst of the year.

Strangely, the performances here are not bad. This literally all-star cast does a pretty good job with the material they are given. There have been many complaints of the casting of "Fergie" in the movie, but I thought her song was one of the strongest. Marion Cotillard is just plain beautiful. Rob Marshall's direction is OK...a bit too similar to CHICAGO, but he really tried to put some energy into things.

Much of the problem is the score. These are some of the worst songs I've ever heard in a musical. And believe me, I've seen some BAD musicals. (Things like this verse from a musical version of CYRANO --"Cyrano is lots of fun...lots of fun for every nun.") Some of the songs in this show are worse than that.

Many of the songs sound the same. If you listen to the songs in the overly long credit sequence, CINEMA ITALIANO and BE ITALIAN are almost indistinguishable. And whenever the composer/lyricist ran out of ideas, he would just have people repeat "GUIDO" endlessly. These songs lack any energy or vitality. They are just plain BAD. The composer/lyricist seems to be trying to emulate Kander & Ebb, but only being about 1/10 that good.

The book isn't much better. None of the characters really open up and tell us about themselves. Many of them are on just to do a song and then disappear. What made his mistress cheat on her husband? Why didn't his wife see though Guido's lies? Why was his costume designer his only friend? The story just plods along without allowing us any time to care about anyone.

This is a bad movie, it should be cut up into small pieces and never shown again. I think I'll go listen to CELL BLOCK TANGO from CHICAGO and see what a REAL musical score sounds like.

Wife and I both rate this one a big "F". What a waste.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-08-2010, 10:20 PM:

Obviously it would be better to check out the other movie of the same name, or rather numeral, released this year: 9.

The other movie has CGI animated "stitchpunk" characters that don't sing bad songs. Haven't seen it yet, but will probably rent it.

Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 02-18-2010, 06:21 PM:

I was entertained by this film, the cast of hot women helped a lot with that, but all of Mark's criticisms in the original post are spot on. Did the musical have a good run on Broadway?

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-18-2010, 06:43 PM:

The original show NINE opened on May 9th. 1982 and ran to Feb. 4th. 1984 for 19 previews, 729 performances. It starred Raul Julia.
NINE had a revival run opening on Apr 18, 2003 and ran to Dec. 14 2003 for 23 previews, 283 performances. This one starred Antonio Banderas, Chita Rivera, Mary Stuart Masterson, Jane Krakowski.

The current long runs here are Phantom of the Opera with 16 previews and 9171 performances as of 2/14/2010. it opened on Jan 26, 1988.
Mamma Mia! with 14 previews and 3448 performances. It opened on Oct. 18, 2001.

Posted by Caleb Johnstone-Cowan (Member # 3710) on 02-20-2010, 07:06 PM:

It didn't have a massive run then, I'm guessing the musical comes across better on stage because I wouldn't pay what you do for Broadway/West End shows based on the film.

In the West End Phantom and Mamma Mia are long runners but also you have The Mousetrap which is in its 58th year, also got Les Miserables, The Lion King, sure there are a couple of others. Last show I saw was Avenue Q which was great fun.