Movie Review

9

Director Shane Acker originally made “9” into an 11-minute short in 2005, and Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (the man behind the cool gunplay in “Wanted”) liked it so much they decided to produce it into a feature. Only I doubt what they intended was just an elongated version of the short film. The characters in “9” all look like voodoo dolls with robotic feet, hands, and eyes. All of their bodies come with zippers. Some have metal eye-patches and helmets. Some are bulkier than others. And they’re all pretty gothic-looking, but also original creations that surprisingly can show emotions very well.

Visually this is all very impressive. Acker has created a dark and frightening apocalyptic world filled with creatively monstrous robots. Two owe their creations to dinosaurs (one is metal combined with dino-bones and the other is a sleek looking pterodactyl) and the biggest and most menacing is called The Machine, which has eight legs and a red eye all up to no good. It’s all enough to create a wall-to-wall animated action flick.

Just the rest of the movie comes up short. The story is non-existant. It centers on a world turned to rubble during yet another human-machine war (It might be the “Transformers” and “Terminators” talking but isn’t this getting redundant?). A doll, called 9 (Elijah Wood), encounters a sanctuary filled with other dolls led by 1 (Christopher Plummer). When old 2 (Martin Landau) is carried off by one of the robots, 9 and the rest defy 1’s orders and go after him, but accidently wake up The Machine. Other characters are voiced by Jennifer Connelly (7), Crispin Glover (6), and John C. Reilly (5). A scientist and saving the planet figure into this as well but I don’t want to spoil the only real piece of plotting here.

Writer Pamela Pettier ("Monster House") has been charged with adding a little more meat to the screenplay but stretching this out to feature length (even at a paltry 80 minutes no less) feels long because of minimal plotting and character development. Both come up way too thin and not worth caring about, usually taking a back seat to a constant series of robots chasing dolls. Main characters are one-dimensional (one is merely brave, another merely nervous), while secondary characters make even less impression before being killed off. A few scenes of narration and mourning the dead are jammed in between action sequences but don’t add much and fall flat. Acker deserves some credit though and I admire Focus Features for again taking a chance after the brilliant “Coraline," on darkly animated adult material. Just “9” is too meager to recommend.

Craig's Grade: C+

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%