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‘9’ doesn’t add up to perfect 10
Movie
9
The time is the too-near future. Powered and enabled by the invention known as the Great Machine, the world's machines have turned on mankind and sparked social unrest, decimating the human population before being largely shut down. But, as our world fell to pieces, a mission began to salvage the legacy of civilization; a group of small creations was given the spark of life by a scientist in the final days of humanity, and they continue to exist post-apocalypse. One of these creations, 9, emerges to display leadership qualities that may help them survive and possibly even thrive. It is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like himself taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group, 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good. They must take the offensive if they are to survive, and they must discover why the machines want to destroy them in the first place. As they'll soon come to learn, the very future of civilization may depend on them.
‘9’
Grade: D
Director: Shane Acker
Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes
Rating: PG-13 for violence and scary images
By Roger Moore
The animated sci-fi film “9” — not to be confused with the non-animated sci-fi “District 9,” or the nonanimated non-sci-fi musical “Nine” — is a perfect example of a thin idea stuffed and stuffed with filler until it loses much of its charm. Shane Acker’s film is built on his 2005 short animation of the same title, an almost magical and mysterious little movie about animated rag dolls in a post-apocalyptic future struggling to “survive” the terrors of their ruined world.
It didn’t explain itself. It didn’t even have dialogue. It was still the darling of many a film festival, a cryptic, arresting vision of a world gone wrong, one that star filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov got behind to see that Acker was able to make a full-length feature out of it.
About all the new film has in common with that original is its brevity — well, and its look. The robotic rag dolls are as “animated” as ever. But the story is a tiresome mash-up of earlier sci-fi and makes the movie play like a cut-rate “WALL-E.”
A doll numbered 9 awakens in a ruined world after war. A scientist gave him life, but now the tinkerer is dead and the doll must fend for himself. Out in the big, bad, barren world, he finds other sentient dolls, chatting, improvising and surviving the attacks of “The Beast,” a robotic dog-thingy.
So 9, who is given the voice of Elijah Wood, takes up with 5 (John C. Reilly) and tries to convince him to go rescue 2 (Martin Landau) aided by the warrior doll 7 (Jennifer Connelly). Stodgy, fear-mongering old No. 1 (Christopher Plummer) preaches fear of the unknown and of knowledge itself.
“Sometimes fear is the appropriate response,” he counsels.
Sure enough, “The Machine” is awakened to attack them and show them more evils of science, “Sanctuary” is lost and “The Source” is sought — all phrases and concepts deeply rooted in sci-fi lore, but stitched together willy-nilly here. It’s anti-religion, anti-science, pro-science, pro-humanity, a little mystical and supernatural to boot.
Though the look is as arresting as ever, this “9” is several digits shy of the original in wit, execution and mystery.