Writer/director Shane Acker has updated and extended his 2005 Oscar-nominated animated short film and brought it to the big screen with the producing help of Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) and Tim Burton (Ed Wood). While the film isn’t perfect, it serves as the sign of an up-and-coming director to keep our eyes on, as he isn’t setting out to tell a goofy story filled with pop-culture jokes and a series of caricatures as much as Acker seems intent on entertaining a more mature audience with higher expectations from their visits to the cinema. It’s these expectations that cause 9 to be both a triumph and a minor misstep, but it’s nonetheless encouraging for the future of the medium.
9 takes place in post-apocalyptic Earth where humans have been obliterated by machines run amuck and all that is left are a band of numbered, stitched-together beings striving to stay “alive” and out of the watchful eye of the mechanical beasts roaming the land. The reason for their existence is not immediately understood and neither is the path they must follow. Circumstance sets them on a series of events that move quickly through a 79-minute running time, but the story seems secondary to spectacular visuals and efforts to get to the next action set piece.
While entertaining, Acker and his screenwriting partner Pamela Pettler didn’t look much further than the story originally presented in Acker’s short film offering up something of an extended version that does little to advance the story.
In Acker’s short (featured to the right) the characters don’t speak, a segment is added to 9 taking care of that. The short shows them as scavengers more than any kind of warriors, a problem is solved with the introduction of 7 (voiced by Jennifer Connelly). The reason for their existence and the world’s demise is unknown so we are given a backstory. Take all this and add in a few more robot villains along with more heroes to fight them and the short is now 69-minutes longer and we have 9.
Named for its lead character, the futuristic rag doll known as 9 is voiced by Elijah Wood and he is the last of his kind to awaken following the Earth’s destruction. He soon meets others like him beginning with 5 voiced by John C. Reilly, 2 voiced by Martin Landau, 1 voiced by Christopher Plummer and 6 voiced by Crispin Glover. The set up for each is quick and to the point, which is one of the film’s downfalls, especially when 9 rises front and center as a savior and leader of sorts without any clue as to what is going on causing for the story’s one major narrative leap. Character development is easily the film’s largest issue and would have helped in the film’s hokey attempt at an emotional finale. As it stands it’s merely quaint, which isn’t a deal-breaker, but when the potential for something great is there, it becomes a little frustrating when the film moves faster than the story wants it to.
9‘s biggest selling point is definitely the imaginative environment and amazing CG-animation. Attention to detail was obviously key and for Acker to see where his now four-year-old animated short has gone it must have been a real treat. The action scenes are fantastic and the film on a whole is a lot of fun, it’s simply missing that little something that would have had the audience entirely caught up in the story and our miniature heroes, rather than simply waiting for the next action sequence to begin.
It should also be noted 9 is rated PG-13 and I would say young children would likely be scared by a lot of what this film has to offer. This isn’t an all-ages affair, but those of age are certain to marvel at the atmosphere even when the story comes up short.
Like I said in my opening, this film isn’t perfect, but it proves Shane Acker is a filmmaker to keep our eye on. 9 would seem to be the dark side to Pixar’s light, but in order to compete Acker is going to need to work on his story development to catch up with the animation behemoth. Perhaps he has it in him, we will just have to wait and see.
