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“If the box office take for this movie is measured...”

written by dhayes22 on 02/02/2010

If the box office take for this movie is measured against the stellar cast than surely it must be one of the biggest flops in history. This movie has more Oscar winners in the cast than perhaps any other movie in recent history - with six Academy Award winners and one nominee among the main cast including Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren and Marion Cotillard and Kate Hudson. The only main cast member who doesn't have an Oscar nomination is Stacey Ferguson, the singer from the Black Eyes Peas who is actually gives one of the best performances in the film.



The film is based on the musical eight and a half which is about an Italian film producer and the woman in his like; his mother, wife, mistress, leading lady, costume designer and on and on. It was a huge hit in the 1980s on Broadway, the film's director is Rob Marshall who made the movie of Chicago and as I said the cast is amazing so by most sensible estimates is should have been a hit.



But it's terrible. The story is all over the place, if you can even really call it a story. The characters are really two-dimensional. The dialogue is weak and the majority of the musical numbers fall flat. Only two of the numbers really work - those by Kate Hudon and Stacey Ferguson. The rest are really dull and lacklustre. And only the performance of Judi Dench is worth watching.



The weakest links are Nicole Kidman (what happened to her?) and, surprisingly, Daniel Day Lewis who is deeply unlikeable as the lead male who is supposed to be an irascible, charming Italian but just comes across as a loser.



One to avoid