Chicago Redux

I really enjoyed the movie version of Chicago from a few years back. So I was naturally curious about last year's film rendition of the musical Nine, helmed by the same director, Rob Marshall. The musical was itself an adaptation, of Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical 8½ -- the story of a film director going throughout a mid-life crisis. He struggles with his new film, weighed down by his own early successes, and unable to find inspiration.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars, but he honestly seems like a mismatch for the role. He's so dour and harsh that he seems to sap a lot of the fun from the movie -- he actually seems closer to his character from There Will Be Blood than the sort of character that's normally the lead in a musical.

In a sort of good news/bad news thing, there's a long list of talented women in the film as well, and each of them seems to be having a much more genuinely good time. Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, and Kate Hudson all have fun with a variety of roles, though unfortunately, no one part gets a great deal of screen time.

The movie looks lavish. The lighting in particular is outstanding and evocative. You could grab stills from nearly any camera cut in the film and get a suitable-for-framing photograph. I'm not always one to go for the spectacle of film, but it's notable here.

But unfortunately, the movie also looks and feels like a clone of Rob Marshall's earlier version of Chicago. The conceit is exactly the same -- no one in the film "actually" sings. Instead, each song takes places in the head of the main character, and "real" action intercuts with scenes on a theatrical stage where the song is performed. I have to say, though it was a gimmick that really worked (and that I really liked) in Chicago, here it feels stale. It leaves me wondering why Rob Marshall would want to make essentially the same movie twice. (And make it not as well as he did the first time, either.)

Overall, the disappointing things about the film overpower the better elements, working out to a C- in my book. It's not a horrible film, but there's no reason I can think of to watch it when you could see Chicago instead.