9 (Movie Review)

Written by Chris YogerstcloseAuthor: chrisyogerst Name: Chris Yogerst
Email: chris@parcbench.com
Site: http://twitter.com/chrisyogerst
About: Chris graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a BA in film studies and English. He is pursuing a master's degree in 'critical studies in film and television' and is the editor of the Parcbench movies section. He is also a contributor to Breitbart's Big Hollywood and Frontpagemag's Newsreal.See Authors Posts (67) on September 9, 2009

Now more than ever, animated films are directed at all audiences, not just kids.  Even in television, animated shows like South Park and Family Guy appeal to adult audiences on a large scale.  Once being a medium marketed primarily at youth, animation no longer has any limitations.

Shane Acker’s feature film debut 9 is no exception.  For the record, this has to be somewhere around the fifth released this year with nine in the title.  That aside, 9 takes place in a post-apocalyptic time that stems from the “we were taken over and killed by robots” excuse for world’s end.  The robots were created by humans so this provides a cautionary tale of sorts.

All humans are gone and the only remaining “life” forms are the robots and some doll-like beings created by a human (we learn more about this, but it’s not that cool).  As you can probably guess, there are nine of them.  Their only method of survival is hiding, but they eventually decide to take the offense on their survival.

This film plays on the idea that some things ought to be sacrificed for the good of many.  Usually this premise can bring out some great intellectual ideas, however this film falls short.  During the 78-minute run time, not much is accomplished.  The story is shallow and fairly weak.  Each character seems predictable and, for the most part, uninteresting.

A little more depth would have gone a long way with this film.  Acker landed some big names including John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, and Elijah Wood.  This talent felt underutilized, which is unfortunate.  During the film I kept thinking to myself about other roles these actors were in when I heard their voices.  Using these noticeable voices in a mediocre only provides a distraction.

On the other hand this film is very intriguing stylistically.  It has sort of a War of the Worlds meets Pixar animation look.  I am probably the only one left who hasn’t gotten into many of the new animation gems, so I may be behind the curve here.  That being said, the diagetic world in 9 gives us much to think about.  We only see a small portion of it, leaving us to wonder what the rest looks like.  The filmmakers should have given us more of it!

9 is not a bad film, but it falls just short on too many fronts.  I went into this film knowing nothing about it, and left knowing little more.  There are a lot of areas that could have been expanded and if that happened, this could have been a great film.  The interesting and stylistic world in this film saves it from failure.  Hopefully Acker will take it into his next film and implement it with a better story and deeper characters.  Until then, feature film animation for an older crowd is still open for anyone to conquer.

Film Grade: C+