Rating: MMMM

Review of animated post-apocalypse noir 9, directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.

Director: Shane Acker
Starring: (voices) Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer
Running time: 79 mins

9 is set in the wastelands of a post-apocalyptic world, following a war between humans and machines. With human life all but extinguished on earth, the only survivors are the numbered cloth bag characters and sinister red lens-eyed beasts, which have more in common with the Terminator than our soft-bodied heroes.

The film opens with a confused 9 (Elijah Wood) apparently lost in the wilderness of what used to be a city. He happens upon fellow cloth-bag 2, who is something of an inventor, managing to fix 9’s broken voice box. The pair are then joined by half-blind 5 (John C. Reilly) but their meeting is cut painfully short by the arrival of the ‘cat beast’, a devilish mechanical feline who captures 2 and carries him off to its lair. What follows is a daring rescue attempt which accidentally brings about the reawakening of the huge machine ‘brain’ which appears hell bent on wiping out every last trace of life on earth. For an animated film with characters that are undeniably cute (their huge Bambi eyes are the clincher), 9 is in no way another computerised story for children.

Packed with moments that are unsettling, frightening and challenging, 9 cements itself as animated fare for adults, to the film’s credit – there are enough genuine horror devices to push the film’s 12A rating, one of which is a horrible dementor’s kiss type sequence that is truly disturbing. The film’s premise and story is highly original and fresh, told with clever flashback sequences that are part of the action and not merely exposition for its own sake. 9 also fundamentally has good storytelling, an element that more filmmakers should prioritise a la Andrew Lasseter and his team at Pixar. Acker presents the characters as rounded and unique (despite being numbered, not named) with neat touches such as 6’s striped asylum-like clothing linking his madman persona and a scene in which fat stooge 8 apparently uses a magnet to get high.

The voice talent is good, with an impressive set of actors enlisted to provide the dialogue, including Christopher Plummer as the aging 1 and Jennifer Connelly as the high-kicking 7. Yet the actors are given a script of such weakness that its cliché ridden holes threaten to bring down a film of such promise. The dialogue is terrible, composed of one hackneyed expression after another, which is disappointing indeed as the premise and plot of the film is original and fresh. However, the film is saved by its unique visual style and its wonderfully endearing cloth bag characters, a clever meeting of the organic and artificial, with their soft bodies and metal parts. Overall, 9 is a well paced, well structured piece of sci-fi animation, beautifully told with moments of terror and poignancy. Great stuff.

Rating: MMMM