Although purists deplore it, the usually profitable but occasionally risky business of remaking motion pictures, which originates in the dark backward and abysm of cinema history, can sometimes achieve successful translations of previous work. The 1978 version of "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," for instance, imaginatively updates the 1956 movie, suggesting a new relevance in its science fiction/horror plot. Gus Van Sant's slavish, shot-for-shot duplication of Hitchcock's "Psycho," on the other hand, demonstrates that adoration provides a poor substitute for intelligence.

In general, genre flicks survive the process better than actual classics, which belong to themselves rather than to a category. Genius, that sloppily applied term, makes its own rules, moves its particular work of art at least a short distance in a new direction; repeating that movement usually ends in the pale imitation of a brilliant original. The remake of Federico Fellini's exuberant, innovative, highly personal "8 1/2," as a musical, so cleverly retitled "Nine," indicates the folly of rethinking a masterpiece.

The new movie provides a useful example of a common practice, the attempt to overcome essential inadequacies with expensive production values. Like its model, it shows the plight of a famous Italian writer-director, Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), struggling somewhat comically with personal and professional problems. Paralyzed by insecurity, harried by the press, nagged by accountants and producers, pursued by a passionate mistress (Penelope Cruz), unable to come up with any ideas for his projected new picture, Guido flees Rome in search of some peace and quiet, only to discover he cannot escape his life without abandoning his art.

Throughout the picture, the director, Rob Marshall, following Fellini, shifts from color to black and white, moves the narrative in and out of ordinary reality, and combs through the memories and fantasies of the protagonist in his search for inspiration and meaning. He also transforms several of the fantasy scenes and sequences in "8 1/2" into loud, lavish musical numbers, with Day-Lewis literally climbing all over the static set and several beautiful women shouting their lovely heads off to what sounds like the same tune over and over.

The transformation of Fellini's picture reaches some of its most disappointing moments in the performance of the star. Daniel Day-Lewis, strangely, plays Guido simply by imitating Marcello Mastroianni, speaking in an Italian accent, moving in the actor's comic hunched-over walk when he attempts to hide from pursuers, using sunglasses and a hat in feeble mimicry of Mastroianni's characteristic mannerisms; lacking the presence, the grace, the good looks, the casual authenticity of the actor who served as Fellini's alter ego, Day-Lewis seems really quite silly and even embarrassing.

In a more pleasing imitation of Fellini, Marshall employs a cast that reflects Fellini's unabashed love of beautiful women (shocking) - especially Penelope Cruz in the most boldly sexual performance of her career, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, even the stunning Sophia Loren.

Those actors, along with a large chorus of scantily dressed dancers and singers, provide some of the liveliest moments in "Nine," which usually means those scenes when Day-Lewis absents himself from the frame.

In a most unfortunate alteration in the maestro's vision, Marshall also turns the movie into a soppy bourgeois morality tale, in which Guido, after two years (as the prose on the screen announces) of navel gazing and self pity, finds himself by working out a reconciliation with his wife, played by the uninteresting, overrated Marion Cotillard. He achieves that dubious success through the advice of Judi Dench, his costume director, in a part that may even surpass Day-Lewis's in its sentimental banality. (Dressing Dench like one of the chorus girls in a musical number must have required a good deal of courage from both actor and director - the poor woman resembles Queen Victoria playing an aged tart, not really her best look.)

In addition to all the beautiful women, with its many shots of Rome and the Italian coast, another sort of scenery, the movie naturally looks terrific. The songs all sound very much alike - again, Penelope Cruz delivers the hottest number - and the dances barely transcend a few simple, coordinated movements. Superficial and stagey, they never actually illustrate the actions inside the artist's mind, which after all, is what both movies are supposed to be about.