9: Gorgeous animation wasted on a sub-par story! The opening scenes set the right tone while showing this film's huge potential. Our main character, a sock puppet named 9 awakens for the first time in a world that has been decimated by war. Those who fought in the war and why is unknown. As 9 discovers the world around him, he slowly uncovers clues as to what caused this mass destruction and wiped out all of mankind. He also encounters other puppets roaming the desolate landscape, each of them made by the same maker and each of them numbered like him. The leader of the puppets is number 1. He believes that they should stay in hiding until all is quite as they know that there is an evil machine roaming around the land that kills anything that moves. The detailed animation is simply amazing and draws you into this strange world. Unfortunately, the film veers from the eerie discovery theme and chooses to focus on big action sequences. This is a terrible mistake as all of the action takes away from the unique feel of the film. I would have preferred to spend more time with the characters adventuring through different environments revealing clues from the past. Eventually we do get a full explanation as to what caused the war and this too can be noted in the disappointment column. It is a story with themes that we have seen more than once before including the destruction of mankind and man vs. machine. The story is not complex enough and that in turn explains why they chose to fill so much time with loud action sequences. In the end, the lesson we learn from 9 is that above all a movie needs a compelling story in order for all of the eye candy to mean anything.Ry's Rating: C
If this movie had parents they would be: Wall-E and Terminator 4 salvation
With a runtime of 85 minutes
this film is rated PG-13
