4:17pm Wednesday 21st October 2009
By Mark Foker
“WHEN OUR WORLD ENDED THEIR MISSION BEGAN” reads the advertising slogan for the new animated movie ‘9’. Not to be confused with the live action musical ‘Nine’ due out this Christmas.
The CGI adventure ‘9’ is set in a scary post apocalyptic future. It’s a cross between 'Terminator' meets 'War of the Worlds' meets 'Little Big Planet'. It’s the usual story of man invents machine to make the world a better place, evil dictator uses machine to rule the world, machines destroy all of mankind. The only life-forms that survive amongst the rubble and derelict landscape are a group of 8 inch tall sack dolls, in fact 9 of them to be precise and a mechanical cat like creature simply known as ‘The Beast’ who is intent on destroying the group. The 9 characters have been created by the very same scientist who invented the machines. Each of the characters has a piece of the scientist’s individual personality embedded in their souls with the hope that they can continue humanity in a new form in this brave new world.
The film opens with the creation of number ‘9’ voiced by Elijah Wood who awakes in a dead world. He soon discovers that there are others like him who are hiding out, each identified with their number drawn on their cloth back. We have #1 (Christopher Plummer) the wise old leader content to hide from the beast. #2 (Martin Landau) the scientist collector foraging for useful bits & pieces. The twins #3 and #4 who continue to archive everything. #5 (John C Reilly) the cautious one, who becomes a close ally of #9. #6 (Crispin Glover) the eccentric artist. #7 (Jennifer Connelly) the warrior ninja and #8 (Fred Tatasciore) the bulky brawn of the operation.
In archive flash back courtesy of the twins we see the devastation that happened with some really horrific scenes familiar to the WW2 Blitz as well as some WW1 style trench warfare.
The whole look of the film is visually stunning and is the result of an expansion on an Oscar winning 11 minute short by the same Director Shane Acker. It was lucky that the short film was a favourite of Tim Burton who came on board as one of the Producers. As an animated film with a 12A certificate, I’m not sure who it is aimed at. Its nightmarish scenes will be frightening for some young children but then again as kids we all liked to watch scary movies. Personally, I think ‘9’ is a must see experience so make sure you catch it on the big screen.
4 stars.
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