BY COLIN ENQUIST
9 is a beautiful looking animated film based off of a short film of the same title. Shane Acker, who created the short as well, directs the full length film. Producing the film are two high end directors themselves, Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov. The voice cast consists of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer.
The story commences with an awakening. 9 (Wood) is born. At this point in time we do not know how, we just know that a scientist has created the rag doll-like “stitchpunk”. 9 has begun to explore the apocalyptic world around him, where he meets up with another stitchpunk, like himself. Soon we become introduced to a few more stitchpunks, learning everything about the world as 9 does. 9 helps rescue a fellow digit, 2 (Landau), but in the process create a new evil set to destroy his new set of friends.
An evil mechanical creature is set to destroy them. Why? Who knows, the audience sure doesn’t. I am under the assumption it is to destroy anything living (or maybe moving?). As the mechanical monster creates his army we are entitled to some very creepy looking machines. Some will be haunting my dreams for weeks to come.The story is there, right in front of you, but it is confusing. We are meant to figure out what the next logical step is at the same moment as 9 but when he figures it out, you can fathom how he came to that conclusion. It’s like the director laid all the significant pieces on the floor and took some away just to confuse whoever looks at it.
So the story was slightly average, the voice cast was forgettable and it threw some good scares, making it an animated film you won’t want to bring young children to see. Well I can at least say the animation of this film is as good as it gets. From the opening sequence to the closing credits I can not tell you how much I enjoyed looking at what the animators did for this film. Every detail is exquisitely put into each character. The bar has been raised on animated films because of 9.
I do not recommend watching this, unless you enjoy confusing films that never make sense. If you really enjoy animated films that use state of the art technology then it might be worth a view once 9 hits DVD. Hopefully we get more films like this one even though Acker’s debut film was not the greatest; you can tell he has a great eye that will help his bright future.
2 out of 5
