The Nine soundtrack. For there to be a winner, there must by extension be a loser. All the box-office chatter for the last month or so has been about James Cameron’s Avatar, with the 3D whizzbang-fest breaking records like a steroid-boosted sprinter. But while Cameron’s blue baby has been gobbling up cash in the fashion of a money-eating dinosaur, what of those flicks that the movie-going public might have overlooked in their rush to grab a second, third or fourth helping of Avatar action? Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes seems to have escaped reasonably unscathed (in spite of being a teensy bit rubbish), but Rob Marshall’s Nine would appear to have been a major casualty – with the all-star musical grossing less than $20m to date. Avatar has probably taken more than that in the time it has taken you to read to this bit of the review. And with a reputed production budget of $80m, you don’t need to be International Doctor of Outer Space Stephen Hawking to be able to riddle out that those figures equal heap big shit for Nine’s backers.

Which should not necessarily reflect poorly on the musical merits of Marshall’s movie. Sure, Nine might be a torpedo-riddled dreadnought at the box-office, a hippopotamus trapped in quicksand, a slice of toast slipping off the plate and tumbling inexorably, awfully towards the hair-strewn and tea-stained floor as fast as that light coating of butter can carry it – but just because nobody is going to see the darn thing, that does not mean its arsenal of songs and singers stink up the screen, or indeed the accompanying Nine soundtrack album. Although it is based on a theatrical musical (by Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston, which was in turn based on Fellini’s 8½), with that usually being an immediate downside in a contemporary feature. Inescapably infected with the reek of old school showbiz, even the freshest song ‘n’ dance stage show comes over like an antediluvian relic when transferred to the cinematic canvas, with this bludgeoning dearth of nuance often being attributable to the rattle-the-fillings-of the-sucker-in-the-back-row honk that seems to be the de facto delivery approach in the sparkling world of Broadway and West End musicals.

The honking in Nine is handled by a stellar roster of acting talent. Daniel Day-Lewis heads up the cast as prevaricating movie director Guido, and contributes two numbers, Guido’s Song and I Can’t Make This Movie, both of which have their own kind of strange, slightly surreal charm, like a favourite uncle putting on a wonky Sinatra croon at a wedding where copious booze has flowed. Day-Lewis is not the only A-lister to gets his vocal chords dirty either, and dirty is the aimed-for sentiment in A Call From the Vatican, cooed by the actress currently on the third part of a “She’s so hot right now!”/“No wait, she’s rubbish/“No wait, she’s so hot right now!” cycle, Penélope Cruz. The song finds her, as Guido’s mistress Carla, putting in a throaty phone call to her lover; though it is not really dirty or sexy in any sense, aside from that kind of polyvinyl sexualisation you see in mainstream pop culture, apparently designed to extract money from aging men for whom the linking path between brain and penis has become increasingly distant, treacherous and forbidding. Better is Be Italian, courtesy of Fergie from the Black-Eyed Peas, and Marion Cotillard’s My Husband Makes Movies. The latter is a sweet lament, an enchantingly retro echo of cinematic musicals from when folks actually knew how to make them properly. The former is, in contrast, loaded with bluster and effectively delivered, as well as being far less likely to drive anyone into a homicidal frenzy of annoyance than any of the records that its vocalist puts out in her day job.

Last seen in Australia looking as tall, pale and thin as lanky England international footballer Peter Crouch, Nicole Kidman passes by on the Nine soundtrack with as little impact as that aforementioned Philip Pullman adaptation made at the cinema cash tills, while Kate Hudson’s confident Cinema Italiano is attention-grabbingly punchy, if mildly irritating. Less irritating than a Hudson-McConaughey rom-com mind, though I’m not convinced it really merits its brace of remixes. And its true to say that once the, mostly decent, numbers that actually appear on-screen in Nine are all spent, the listening pleasure of the attendant soundtrack drops off a cliff somewhat. Which is quite possibly what Nine’s financial backers are themselves doing right about… now.

You can download the Nine soundtrack as mp3s here
Or buy it on CD here

Nine Soundtrack (Songs & Score) – Track-Listing
1. Overture Delle Donne – Female Ensemble
2. Guido’s Song – Daniel Day-Lewis
3. A Call From the Vatican – Penélope Cruz
4. Folies Bergère – Judi Dench
5. Be Italian – Fergie
6. My Husband Makes Movies – Marion Cotillard
7. Cinema Italiano – Kate Hudson
8. Guarda La Luna – Sophia Loren
9. Unusual Way – Nicole Kidman
10. Take It All – Marion Cotillard
11. I Can’t Make This Movie – Daniel Day-Lewis
12. Finale – Original Soundtrack
13. Quando Quando Quando – Fergie
14. Io Bacio… Tu Baci – Noisettes
15. Cinema Italiano (The Ron Fair Remix) – Kate Hudson
16. Unusual Way – Griffith Frank
17. Cinema Italiano (The Ron Fair Remix Club Version) – Kate Hudson

Leave your thoughts on Nine and the Nine soundtrack in the comments. If you’re looking for a particular song leave a description and someone normally replies.