NINE ☆☆☆

"Nine" is a musical close to mediocrity, but I'll give it it's due.

The new movie musical, from choreographer/director Rob Marshall (of "Chicago" and the visual drama "Memoirs of a Geisha"), is a good music performance. The numbers aren't half bad, and the songs are lyrical, poetic, and pretty darn catchy. Marshall can work a tune on camera, and it helps he has a lot of great material (thanks Maury Yeston!), but Marshall's problem is that the movie's music numbers don't sing. They don't soar, or fly, or bounce all over the place, and for a musical that needs those show-stopping tunes to really be anything close to a musical, they definitely should. And I would think for any of that to work is to have good editing. So, in a way, should I blame the editors, Claire Simpson and Wyatt Smith? (Well, at any rate, the director should have pushed them more.) "Chicago," though not a great musical, either, still blasted a lot of their numbers with excellent camera work that danced and flew, and cuts that bounced and flashed and made us tap our feet at 90 miles an hour. "Nine" needed to be that.

On a good note, something positive of Marshall is his one great talent on his shows is garnering a very talented crew, who each exuberate great visuals, shot's that are visually arresting, with beautiful lighting, camera work, costume and set dress (just see "Chicago" or "Geisha," especially "Geisha,", and you would agree with me); photographer Dion Beebe, who moves his camera with great ease, the ever fabulous costume lady Colleen Atwood, and production designer John Myhre, all do wonderful work here, and bring out "Nine" beautifully.

Next to the music and the visuals, the story of "Nine," on the other hand, just wasn't taken on well enough. Marshall's "Geisha," a movie with no music tunes, suffered dramatically simply because Marshall couldn't tell a story with the flare he could with a dance number. Personally, every time the music stopped and the frustrated inner turmoil of Guido Contini came up, I sulked and waited for the next number.

Though it's hard to say, in spite of Marshall, the movie doesn't have a nice cast to back him up: Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Kate Hudson, Judi Dench, most Oscar winners, by the way. Their acting is wasted a little, but they each are given a tune to sing, and excel with them. They blew their vocals and surprised me they could even do that. For having them in the movie, that did it for me.

Not a bad script job, too. From Michael Tolkin and Anothony Minghella (the Academy Award winning director of "The English Patient"), who, sadly, recently passed away last year.

"Nine," isn't a bad musical, and it can get you that fix, but if you want a really excellent one, I would see "Moulin Rouge!" And in the case of "Nine," if you aren't willing to sit with contemptuous Guido Contini, I would just buy the soundtrack.