9 (**½)
Directed by: Shane Acker Starring (voices): Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Fred Tatasciore
Seen: May 14th 2010
**½ Out of ****
Blown up to feature film length from a short film by the same director, 9 is one of the most beautiful yet ineffectual movies you might ever see. The animation is almost brilliant enough to on its own sustain high levels of amazement and interest; almost. The story has potential enough, but is presented in a fitful way, almost as if a string of animated shorts were pasted together. The pacing is strange, as there is no sustained feel the dread some of the scenes clearly try to convey. The movie is not for children, as there are some very scary elements in the story – mutated dolls attacking the hero and his ragtag band of rag dolls chief among them. It is however a very inventive movie, and in its presentation it is very complete.
9 (Wood) is a rag doll who wakes up in a room filled with schematics and tools and a dead man on the floor. He takes one tentative step and falters a bit on the next – and as the camera starts moving backwards to take in more imagery you start seeing more than just the room, the rest of the building comes into view and you see the effects of some cataclysmic event, it is standing only on mercy, with most of the buildings surrounding it destroyed, to leave a landscape not unlike the fallen apart world presented in the Matrix movies. Outside he sees another rag doll, and follows him. 2 (Landau), and in the ensuing battle with a mechanical feline creature, he saves 9, but is captured himself. 9 is saved by 5 (Reilly), who has only one “eye” left, and is taken to an old factory, where the rest of the band resides: their leader, 1 (Plummer) is controlling and fearful; his muscle, 8 (Tatascione), is the large and unintelligent enforcer; 6 (Glover) is an off-his-rocker artist who draws only one thing, a symbol that 9 remembers from a machine part he picked up; 3 and 4 are voiceless cataloguers, curious and shy twins who operate the band’s library; while 7 (Connelly) has abandoned the group in protest to 1’s controlling nature.
9 slowly starts taking leadership of the group, and as he goes off to attempt rescuing 2, he runs into 7 and the feline beast, with more creatures activated throughout the story. The group also continuously uncovers clues about their origin/creator, a scientist who unwittingly also created BRAIN, the artificially intelligent machine that eventually destroyed mankind. The climax has the group squaring off with BRAIN, and the ensuing battle is both adventurous and scary in its ferocity.
The friendship that develops between the characters is effectively portrayed, with a definite view on the curiosity between the different rag dolls. The movie is however too long for its own good, and its pacing doesn’t do it any favours, as the viewer isn’t continuously engaged in the story as lulls in the storytelling tend to make you as viewer lose interest – even the fantastic animation will not hold you effectively glued to the screen. The movie is fun to watch though, so if the post-apocalyptic science fiction scene attracts you, try to catch it on the big screen – if only for the sumptuous animation.
Comments