9 (2009)

Genre

Animation | Action | Adventure

Director

Shane Acker

Country

USA

Voice Cast

Elijah Wood, Fred Tatasciore, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, John C. Reilly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, Alan Oppenheimer, Tom Kane, Helen Wilson

Storyline

In a world destroyed in a war between man and machine, a hand-stitched doll with the number 9 on its back (Elijah Wood) comes to life, and with the help of others like him he must save humanity.

Opinion

Back in 2005 a young Shane Acker made a short film that was nominated for an Oscar. Four years later, thanks to creative genius Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, he was able to make an animated feature length out of it, and it's quite good.

Visually appealing though not providing a lot of food for thoughts, "9" is a breath of fresh air in terms of dystopian fiction and animation.

Shane Acker brought to the big screen a tale about the classical conflict between humans and machines, following "WALL·E" footprints, and borrowing maybe a little too much from other apocalyptic films like the abovementioned and "Terminator", but in the right way.

Still the film is not a nine. It suffers from a straightforward plot which ends exactly how one would expect it to, there aren't any real twists, or anything in the plot that makes it really engaging. Also there isn't a real explanation of what is going on. The characters had a lot of potential, all wasted though, and there is no character development.

The film also suffers from some dead moments and a swinging pace - very fast paced moments followed by long narrative pauses.

However, the animation, which is basically the reason I watched the film in the first place, is stunning. The scenery and landscapes are beautifully crafted, and although it is computer generated it really resembles the style of Tim Burton's stop-motion animation.

Overall it is quite enjoyable, and it's definitely worth checking out for the visuals.

3 comments :

  1. The story sounds interesting but it sounds like they didn't explore it as well as they could have

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's exactly what happened. Too bad because it had great potential.

      Delete
  2. Mi hai ricordato che devo ancora recuperarlo...

    ReplyDelete