Anticipation can be such a pain in the ass sometimes. Sometimes it pays off (“The Dark Knight”), and other times it just destroys you (“Public Enemies”). Now when anticipating a film based on the trailer, there are two things that the movie can be. First, it could be a really bad movie with all the decent parts being shown in the trailer. On the other hand, the trailer can just be a tiny preview of the enormous entertainment that the film has. The trailer for “9” is mind-blowing, featuring some truly bad-ass shots and a great song to go with the trailer (“Welcome Home” by Coheed & Cambria; seriously get this song on your iPod). Unfortunately, this is one of the times where the trailer is much better than the movie itself. “9” isn’t terrible, but it’s not good either. The simple story is really stretched out and the characters are extraordinarily underdeveloped. But, it is also a gorgeous-looking movie with breathtaking animation and some big “holy shit” moments.
The story is very simple: nine living rag dolls fight against Terminator-like machines that have destroyed all humanity. That’s it. I’m not kidding, there is nothing else. For a movie that could’ve had a very complex and intriguing story is replaced by a very simple and predictable one. There have many complaints about the runtime of this movie (it’s 80 minutes), and I’m one of the complainers. We get no time for character development or thoughtful insight on the war, or the rag dolls, or even the machines. I would’ve loved to seen more machines than they had in the film, and the coolest looking machine only has a 5-10 minute appearance. I felt absolutely nothing for these characters and I really didn’t care what was going to happen after I knew the whole story. I pretty much predicted who was going to die and what was going to happen, and they even show one major death in the trailer.
The film feels like its building up to this stunning finale and it’s going to blow me away. The sad part is it ended in such a boring and uncreative way. At the end of the film, my friend and I literally said at the same time: “that’s it? Don’t tell me that’s the end.” As for running time, many people have already criticized me about that saying that a short film can be a very good one. I think “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is shorter than “9”, but when I watch “The Nightmare Before Christmas” I actually feel extremely entertained and it doesn’t have any moments where something just falls flat. But also, “The Nightmare Before Christmas” feels like a 2 hour movie to me, but “9” felt like it was 45 minutes. Another big problem I have with the film is that the chain of events is started by the stupidest thing. I won’t spoil it, but it really does cheapen the story even more.
On the positive side, this film is stunning to look at. The animation is incredible and the attention to littlest details is off the charts. The world that the director has created is great and it feels alive and genuine. The character designs are also dead-on beautiful and machines are very creative (despite there being so few of them). I honestly couldn’t have cared less who voiced the characters, but they all did a really good job. Christopher Plummer gives another great voice performance (he was also Charles Muntz in “Up”), and so does Elijah Wood. Oh, so does John C. Reily, Martin Landau, and Jennifer Connelly. The film also some very good “holy shit” moments, such as one really disturbing image seen when 9 first wakes up and goes exploring.
One word warning: take the PG-13 seriously. This film is far more violent and intense than most of the animated films being released these days. There are some pretty disturbing images and scenes, and the machines (including my favorite one) will scare the hell out of younger kids.
Overall, “9” is a beautifully animated movie that is far too simple and criminally underdeveloped. They could’ve had so much more depth and story, but the movie is simple to a fault. I don’t recommend you pay to see this in the theater, but see this when it comes out on DVD or plays at a $1 theater. C
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