Director: Shane Acker
Runtime: 80 mins
In 2004, promising UCLA animation student Shane Acker was nominated for an Academy Award with his 11-minute short, 9. Five years later, 9 has suckled upon the giving financial teats of its producers, Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, and has been rebirthed as a full-length feature. The characters have gained voices and the film now has a cast bursting with credible names.
9 is set in a dystopian, war-ravaged earth (evocative of post-WWII London), where 9 anthropomorphic hessian-sack dolls possess the last vestige of humanity and must pit the full might of their miniature will against great odds to survive. The film focuses on 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood), the youngest member of the group whose bravery and resourcefulness propels him to lead. 9 tumbles into life in this apocalyptic world and immediately befriends 2 (Martin Landau) and 5 (John C. Reilly). His leadership is vehemently opposed by the eldest, 1 (Christopher Plummer) – who prefers a passive resistance to social uprising. There is also the obsessive, slightly deranged artistic 6 (Crispin Glover, proving typecasting can successfully extend into animated frontiers); the Amazon-like 7 (Jennifer Connelly); the rotund and brutish 8 (Fred Tatasciore); and the mute twins 2 and 3. Together, the group work to overcome adversity – pitting their collective will against great odds. The Great Beast is vanquished and replaced by the Great Machine – a succession of grating Greats gradually making me grumpy.
Whilst 9 has been beautifully animated in CGI, it sadly lacks originality. In truth, the addition of a script to the film contributed largely to its downfall. At 80 minutes, 9’s characters only have time to establish themselves as flimsy stereotypes devoid of substance, and impossible to empathise with. I quite simply did not care – their trials were textbook, their lives were disposable and how can you love a 1 dimensional drawing? The plotline was also all too familiar. By now, viewers know all about the war-ravaged earth, the idea of man losing against machine, triumphing against great odds, the resilient protagonist … For the most part, watching 9 felt like I was watching someone play a well-animated Role Play game.
9 is a film with an identity crisis – too graphic and violent for children, with rotting dead bodies abounding in post-apocalyptic earth; and concurrently too superficial for adults. 9 exists in a cold no-man’s land – targeting hardened up kids, and backseat video gamers, wanting to exhume their sport into a larger frontier.
