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List Price: $29.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 804
Released: December 29, 2009 |
| Our Price: $18.99 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
From visionary filmmakers Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas) and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) and Academy Award®-nominated director Shane Acker comes this visually stunning and original epic adventure. In the final days of humanity, a dedicated scientist gives the spark of life to nine of his creations. The world has turned into an unrecognizable landscape of machines and spare parts, but this group of nine finds that if they band together, their small community might just be able to change the course of history. Featuring the voice talents of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly and Crispin Glover, it’s a thrilling, suspenseful story critics call “richly imaginative.” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone)
Description of 9:
Nine small rag dolls, stitched together from burlap and clock workings and lenses, are all that stands in the way of the world being overtaken by the Machines. Actually, as 9 begins, it looks like the Machines have already had their way with Earth: this is one of those post-apocalyptic landscapes without life, hope, or sunlight. Clearly 9 director Shane Acker is willing to make an animated film that doesn't soar with Disney colors or Pixar cheer--in fact, main characters are killed off before the movie's halfway through. Our hero is 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood), so dubbed for the number on his back; after awakening to very confused consciousness, he bumps into other puppet survivors, such as the imperious 1 (Christopher Plummer), the warrior-like 7 (Jennifer Connelly), and the one-eyed comic sidekick 5 (John C. Reilly). They do battle with the Machines in a relentless (and eventually monotonous) series of battles, and the exploding hardware and endless warfare has a tendency to crowd out whatever character development might have been set up in the opening minutes. No question the movie's design is impressive, and the characters have a wonderfully expressive quality at first. But at some point it seems the Machines have taken over the moviemaking here, with tedious results. --Robert Horton
9 Reviews:
Hard to review - it's a setup for sequels that may or may not happen. 
2009-12-18 - This is a hard movie to review. Incredibly good animation, I love the Tim Burtonish style throughout, lots of action, but I feel like there's a few holes in the story and in the characters. Almost like it's an excellent movie, but I'm going to have to watch the sequel(s) this movie seemed to be setting up for to fill in all of the holes (and there was sequel hinting towards the end). Despite the holes in the story, plot and character development it was an enjoyable movie, and I still recommend seeing it. As for kids - the violence isn't any worse than Tom and Jerry, little to no cussing, there's not a lot of gore, however the movie is dark and the monsters can be scary. I'm going to say know your kid and how they will react to that sort of thing before saying yes or no. If your kid is scared of the boogie man and imagines monsters in the shadows, review this one on your own first.
This iffy review aside, there's a lot of hopes for this movie if sequels actually do happen. Stephen Kings the Gunslinger, when I read it, I knew it was a good book, but I didn't know why. It wasn't until I read the next book I understood why I liked the first one. I feel like 9 is waiting for its own Drawing of the Three.
maybe it was a great short-film 
2009-12-13 - 3.5 for the long version. If you liked it, hey I'm glad. You know? Just being honest here... I thought it was a little silly and not that interesting or exciting. The origin story of the dolls and that they have "souls".... the machine they fight... I guess I plain didn't care for it and it was a let down. My 2 cents. But the animation was good.
Idiotic Concept for a Movie 
2009-12-12 - Rag dolls come alive and save the world? This is perhaps the stupidest idea for a movie that I have seen in years. This make Mary Poppins look like hard science fiction. It is no wonder this thing bombed -- only the even more inept Watchman saved this movie from being the loser picture of the year.
mediocre
2009-12-12 - This is a feature film squeezed out of a student short that was equally uninventive. There's some mythical component to it, but the basic storyline is there are these little bags of crap with eyes that run around trying not to be killed by mechanical birds and spiders. It's visually alright, not really up to par with today's standards. There's nothing especially bad about it, but unless you've exhausted this year's other options for animated features, I wouldn't bother. Up, Coraline, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and Fantastic Mr. Fox are all way better.
Pretty, But a Little Bland
2009-12-08 -
What happens when you attach Tim Burton's name and production style to a movie? A lot of hope, followed by a lot of heart-ache.
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These days, the "producer" tag is thrown around like Lindsey Lohan's baby sister. It's a good marketing ploy: pay a well known director to use his or her name so people can say, "a film by so-and-so," without actually lying. It's a hype-builder technique, and sometimes the film lives up to it.
Guillermo Del Toro "produced" The Orphanage, and it was almost as amazing as Pan's Labyrinth. Quentin Tarantino produced Iron Monkey, and I fell asleep for the first time during a kung-fu movie. Martin Scorsese produced You Can Count On Me, and I was mesmerized(granted, it didn't have much Scorsese flair.) John Carpenter produced the only Halloween movie without Michael Myers, Halloween III: Season of The Witch. So, it's a hit-or-miss situation. In the movie 9, we miss, but barely.
Who's the big director for this film? Some guy who did animation for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King named Shane Acker. That's no small role, considering how seamless the CGI really was in that trilogy, but please, from that to directing a feature-length animation that would be awe-inspiring? Not too well thought out.
The story, as far as I could tell, goes like this: SkyNet takes over the world with their hunter-killer Terminator robots, finally killing off the human race in order to rust in peace for eons. One survivor, a scrawny scientist, creates a gang of ragdolls called "stitchpunks" to take back what's left of the world in order to...collect mildew in peace. These ragdolls, in fact, have been infused with the scientist's soul using some weird-looking bottlecap, and it is up to the last of them, 9, to gather the group to fight SkyNet's mother brain, and make the world safe for life to bloom again.
Confused? I was, too, especially when Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't make one cameo.
Visually, the movie is amazing. All of the animation has a full, textured feel that made me think, "Woah, is this claymation with fabric?" This was not the case, but it really was that good. Post-apocalyptic Earth was vast and colorful. Action sequences were intense. In this sense, Tim Burton should be proud to have this movie attached to his name.
The story, unfortunately, acts like filler for a visual juggernaut. It treaded a certain middle ground, when it would have been best served on one side or the other in terms of plot vagueness. Let me explain.
9 starts the viewer off in what seems to be another unknown world, just like the namesake ragdoll, #9. This is always an interesting concept, as you learn things as the character learns them, and are always wondering what happens next.
For a while, the movie stays this course. Then, closer to the end, the movie feels the need to explain the history of the world in 20 seconds, completely nullifying the feelings you have at the beginning of the movie. If they kept the movie going on its own terms without the need to slap the viewer in the face with an explanation, this movie would have been amazing. Instead, we get rushed to the end for the big, awe-inspiring soul theme. What a waste.
