9

9 - out of 5

It was a good year for first time writer/directors to get their work out to the masses, but it seems that fact makes it that much harder to make a splash in the world of film-dom. Just like most things in life, the first attempt is going to have it's good, it's bad, and it's mediocre.

9 is Shane Acker taking his short film of the same name into a full length feature, and while he seems to have a wonderful grasp of cinematography and beautiful animation, the story falls a bit short. I do like that he fought for a PG-13 rating to not dumb down his vision because there aren't very many "adult animation films" it seems, but it felt like he could've fleshed out the plot a bit more.

The voice talents of Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, and Crispin Glover work quite well with their numbered "rag doll" characters. The dolls have somehow been given life by a scientist who, years ago, made the first "intelligent machine that can make lower forms of intelligent machines" that turn against humanity and eradicate them/us from the earth.

Maybe it's the whole "machines turned on us" plotline that bothers me because it has been done quite a few times now, and while I think it was an interesting idea to have these dolls trying to save a semblance of life, something about the movie didn't make it more than a one time viewing and move on.

I do think there's something very interesting about numbers, and I wonder what the significance of the nine dolls mean. I never really got interested enough to look deeper into it so maybe that's my own fault so maybe take that into mind if you do watch this.

As far as the ending, it really made me go "okay... [scratches head]" and then forget about the movie twenty minutes later. So I'd say it's worth a rental especially for the exquisite animation, but don't be surprised if you find the story lacking.