Directed by: Shane Acker
Starring: Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Crispin Glover, and Fred Tatasciore
Plot: When 9 first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world where all humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group, 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good. They must take the offensive if they are to survive, and they must discover why the machines want to destroy them in the first place. As they'll soon come to learn, the very future of civilization may depend on them. Taken from www.imdb.com.
What do you get when you take a screenplay based on a short film that was nominated for an Oscar, good CG, a good budget, and an all-star cast? A beautiful movie about nothing.
That's the best way to describe "9" an expanding on a short film that seemed to take "expand" to mean "make it bigger." It boasts an amtosphere that is equal parts beautiful and creepy, some enemies that are both grotesque and terrifying. The problem is the story behind all this art is rather sparse and vague.
We first meet 9 as he's being made, a little robot that bears more than a passing resemblance to "Little Big Planet's" Sackboy. Upon waking he grabs a mysterious device and goes out into the world and meets 2, another sack-bot like himself who seems to have a keen ability for building things from foraged scraps.
2 and 9 are attacked by a cat skeleton/robot who takes 2 and the mysterious device away. It is shortly thereafter that 9 meets the rest of his brothers and sisters. Against the orders of the authoratative 1 he goes to rescue 2 and unwittingly messes everything up waking a giant machine that wiped out all human life.
This film supports a star studded cast including Elijah Wood, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, and Jennifer Connelly. Yet the only performance worth mentioning is the crazed number 6, played by Crispin Glover who comes off as both insane and deeply intelligent. Even 6 has a small role and unfortunately doesn't tip the scales past the mediocrity level.
While the art of this film is beautiful I don't feel it's up to par with what's come to be expected in this day and age. In a decade where Pixar is the top dog of the animation world, "9" doesn't even manage to be up to snuff with Dreamworks. I saw computer animation this good in "StarCraft" back in 1998 and it was barely top of the line then. For a short film it was understandable, but with a big budget couldn't they have polished it a bit more?
Speaking of things that needed more polish, I know that a short film can only have so much story, but when you bring it into a feature-length movie it needs to be longer and more involved.
The story is very vague and confusing. Most of the 9 dolls don't do anything though we're lead to believe that each one is meant to serve a specific purpose. It's unclear why the doctor decided to make 9 as the machine was already dead by God knows what means, nor is it unclear how the doctor survived the extinction of his entire species.
The characters are given no depth beyond a single character trait and the ending makes it feel like some sort of disheartening and downtrodden take on "Wall-E." We're given a brief peek at a world that looks as vibrant and interesting as it does desolate and sad, but that brief look is all we get and you'll likely walk out of the theater disappointed, wishing that the director had given you more.
I give "9" a 2 out of 5. It has a lot of potential that it doesn't even come close to realizing. Skip this one and just watch the short film instead.
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