Movie Review: 9
Shane Acker Directs Focus Features Film, Tim Burton Produces
Sep 8, 2009 Dominic von Riedemann
Focus Features appears to be positioning itself as the dark horse of animated film. Earlier this year, the studio gave us the stop-motion Neil Gaiman adaptation Coraline. Now it's unleashed 9, directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton (Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland) and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch).
Based on Acker's animated short of the same name – and starring the voices of Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer – 9 is a compelling mix of steampunk, Star Wars, the Terminator series and, yes, Coraline.
Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov Produces Shane Acker's 9 Starring Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer
Tiny, burlap-clad homunculus 9 (Elijah Wood) awakes to find his ostensible maker dead. Exploring the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world where robots have wiped out all living things (did we mention Terminator?), 9 discovers another like him, called 2 (Martin Landau). However, when 2 is kidnapped by a robotic predator, 9's attempt to rescue him accidentally awakens an ancient evil.
It's too easy to compare 9 to Coraline, because there are so many similarities in plot and tone. It doesn't help that Focus produced both movies and Burton also produced and wrote Coraline director Henry Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Coraline and 9's opening sequences – where mysterious hands stitch together a rag doll figure – are virtually identical, and both films present sinister worlds where overmatched heroes must seek to contain forces they've unwittingly unleashed.
But props have to go to Starz and Focus' CGI work, which is nothing less than stunning. It's easy to forget you're watching a CGI animated film at points, and Acker's designs are original and frighteningly plausible. The action sequences, where 9 and his burlap brethren battle junkyard monsters in ruined churches and libraries, are tautly plotted and mercifully missing any deus ex machina moments.
Much like the original Terminator, the main villain in this film cannot be negotiated with and doesn't take time out to monologue at the hero at convenient moments. It can only be stopped. The question then becomes: how?
Yes, Acker and Focus went Hollywood with their casting choices, but the cast does well. Wood voices a conflicted, but slightly underwritten, hero while Connelly portrays the type of confident, independent female character that regularly gives movie executives heartburn. The ever-reliable Landau brings believability to a character who may be too brave for his own good, and Christopher Plummer (last heard as Charles Muntz in Up) gives a sympathetic portrayal of what could have been yet another villain.
The Final Analysis
While the characters in 9 aren't as well developed as the ones in Coraline (not to give away any spoilers, but that may be the point), Shane Acker immerses the audience in an equally sinister and absorbing world.
It's a brilliantly conceived vision, and a strong debut from writer/director Acker, and 9 earns a 8/10.
9 poster
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