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9 (2009)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
September 12th, 2009
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'9' began as an 11-minute short, which received an Oscar nomination, and grabbed the attention of co-producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, who provided director Shane Acker with the funding to turn this into a feature film, and helped to draw in some big-name voice talent. Inspired both by Wall E and the Terminator series, '9' focuses on a world in which machines have turned on and destroyed the human race. These machines now control what is left of the planet, in ruins after some apocalyptic event.
The recently awakened protagonist #9 (Elijah Wood) is a humanoid puppet, created by a scientist, who discovers that he is not the only one of his kind. There are more beings just like him, all named by their numbers; #2 (Martin Landau) rescues 9 from danger, but is then captured by a machine. 9 wants to save him, but this idea is quickly shot down by the domineering leader of the group, #1 (Christopher Plummer). 9 defiantly heads off anyway, accompanied by good-hearted engineer #5 (John C Reilly), and valiant warrior #7 (Jennifer Connelly). The movie is visually dazzling, and one can detect some lofty artistic ambitions, though many of the landscapes are bland and repetitive.
The individual design of each character is impressive, however, and the same could be said for the robotic villains, which could potentially frighten younger viewers. This is a fairly dark, drab, and humorless experience, initially rather fascinating, but then it starts to tread through overly familiar territory, and fails to distinguish itself from other flicks with similar settings. There are numerous action/chase sequences, some of them intense, suspenseful, and well-crafted, but others seeming excessively noisy and pointless.
Of the voice actors, Plummer was the only one I recognized immediately, everyone else maintains an effective sense of anonymity, though their roles are not all that expressive, and the characters could well be interchangeable, as they lack distinctive personalities. The dialogue is dull and impersonal. Too solemn and self-serious to entertain children; too thematically obscure and derivative to entice most adults and cineastes, fans of Burton and the rising star Bekmambetov, who directed last year's summer hit Wanted.
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