9 (2009)


9 was supposed to be a foray into animation for adults, but from what little I remember of the advertising that would have been difficult to understand.  In all honesty I was just surprised when I watched this that it wasn't a Disney or Dreamworks film.  Instead, it was the first movie made by a studio called Focus Features, who followed this up with the more well-known (and well-received) adaptation of Coraline.

Originally made as a short film by writer and director Shane Acker, 9 is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a fascist human government was wiped out when the machines they created revolted against them.  The machines didn't fare much better, and it is into this world that 9 (Elijah Wood), a mechanical ragdoll creature with parts made out of household items, comes to life.  Confused and afraid, he soon meets 2 (Martin Landau), a creature similar to him.  They don't get much of a chance to become acquainted before they are attacked by a mechanical beast, which carries 2 off to an abandoned factory.

9 is rescued by 5 (John C. Reilly), much to the chagrin of their leader 1 (Chrisopher Plummer), who has created a sanctuary for the other mechanical dolls in the ruins of Notre Dame Cathedral.  When 9 and 5 go off to rescue 2 from the beast, 9 sets off a series of events surrounding a mysterious device he woke up with, and which may have have significant consequences the re-emergence of life on Earth.

It is a pretty epic concept.  Unfortunately, some of the mysteries surrounding what happens are both predictable and predictably farfetched.  9 has a rushed feel, making it hard to latch onto the story and have any emotional investment.  This isn't helped by a rushed ending that doesn't make too much sense as a conclusion, considering the state the world is in.  

The voice acting is okay, and considering that in addition to the above Crispin Glover and Jennifer Connelly also offer their talents it should be.  The animation is a mixed bag, with the Beast, the mechanical pterodactyl creature and a hypnotic clockwork snake all being well-done creations, and frightening enough to younger kids that it got the movie a PG-13 rating despite there not really being anything else too adult about it.  The Brain, the central machine that creates the others, is also well done.  Where it flounders is when showing any old footage with humans; they all look like computer animations from Playstation Games from the 1990s.  

I do give credit to Shane Acker for trying something new, but while he has a good visual eye this doesn't extend to storytelling or character building.  It is another in a long line of cartoons made to try to break the mold of animation being limited to a younger audience, but once again leaves much of what makes an involved adult story behind while not being brave enough to totally abandon the need to still appeal to kids.  

9 (2009)
Time: 79 minutes
Starring: Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer
Director: Shane Acker

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Image
Virtual reality has been one of the most hyped, and one of the most disappointing, promises of technology.  While it promotes immersion into a cybernetic world what it really provides are video games with 20-year-old graphics and the occasional bruise when one accidentally hits a closet door.  In the case of The Lawnmower Man  what it is promising is that something with graphics just a little bit better than Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" video will somehow change the world and alter humanity. It was laughable then and it is laughable now.  The only person not laughing was Stephen King, who demanded that his name be removed from all future advertising for the movie because he never wrote this.  The story, of which a short film was made in the 1980s, involves a man unwittingly hiring a Greek god to mow his lawn and, after said god creates a spectacle, paying for the landscaping with his life.  It's only a few pages and, in my opinion, it is one of King's worst
Read more

Things (1989)

Image
Most of the time when I hear a movie is the worst ever I know that is hyperbole. There are few candidates and I would even say the famous book chronicling the worst movies ever made got it wrong.  Plan 9 from Outer Space is laughably incompetent, but enjoyable.  The worst kind of films are the ones where no joy can be found in the watching experience, for reasons ranging from unlikeable characters to just sheer boredom.  A truly horrible movie is something like  Things.   This is a 1989 direct-to-video horror film from Canada, filmed on 8mm and dubbed once it was completed and the makers realized most of the sound was unusable.  Director Andrew Jordan and writer Barry J. Gillis managed to grab porn star Amber Lynn for an hour to shoot her as a news reporter just so they could put her face on the video box.  Most of the music was done by Gillis, and some of it by a local band called Familiar Strangers.  It was filmed in large part in Andrew Norman's basement, and most of the props w
Read more

The Omen (1976)

Image
A movie does not have to be high art to strike a chord with the public.  The Omen was an attempt by writer David Seltzer to make some money and get a nice trip to the UK.  It just so happened that because of The Exorcist the public was hungry for more movies involving demons and such, and adding a veneer of Catholicism didn't hurt either.  The Vatican's secrets are most likely of more interest to scholars than anyone else, but a religion doesn't hang on over the centuries without creating a bit of mystery.  In this case, Seltzer settled on the Revelation of St. John, the low-fantasy portion of the Bible and, instead of an hilariously named (albeit historically correct) demon named Pazuzu, with The Omen we get the son of Satan himself.  When Robert Thorne (Gregory Peck) is informed that his child has died he visits a priest at the hospital in Rome where his wife is coalescing.  He is given an offer too good to be true: a foundling, whose mother died in childbirth, was born
Read more