Movie Review - 9

Movie Title
9
Year
2009
Genre
Animation, Fantasy
Story
Set some time in the future. Powered by a human invention known as the Great Machine, the world’s sentient machines have turned against their human creators and decimated the entire human race before it was somehow shut down.

In the wake of the collapse of our world, 9 (Elijah Wood), a 12-inch stitchpunk* doll-like creature (robot?) awakes in what appears to be a decimated science lab without voice, finds & brings with him a strange mechanical object from the debris. As he explores the world outside, 9 is attacked by a cat-like machine called the Beast but he is saved by another similar looking doll called 2 (Martin Landau) who eventually helped fix his voice. 2 soon leads 9 to a group of similar looking creatures. We eventually learn that they were given life by a dying scientist and they continue to exist with the sole mission to salvage the legacy of human civilization. With only 9 (hence the title) of them against a cadre of menacing post-apocalyptic techno-mechanical monstrosities, they soon find their numbers dwindling as one-by-one, they are captured by these monsters. The cool bird-beaked headgear garbed 7 (Jennifer Connelly) & 9 soon go against the leadership of 1 (Christopher Plummer) in a bid to rescue their captured comrades and heads off to enemy territory to confront the nightmarish machine called the Brain – which seemed to control the other monsters. However, only the ominous message left by their human creator within the strange artifact could help them uncover the secret to face the Beast.

* Stitch-Doll & Steam-Punk

Acting
The voice acting all blends together very well and none of it seems forced or out of place.

Overall

The movie boasts of sophisticated visual brilliance similar to, even surpassing, high-end computer games. Some of the monstrosities encountered are brilliantly brought to horrific life by CGI. I must say the terrifying visuals are not meant for kiddies as even I got a quite a fright looking at them. Case in point is the Snake Doll, a doll-headed snake ''seamstress'' that mechanically sews a victim up within its belly – so hideous it looks almost demonic.

The doll design was very cute & endearing. I’m a little surprised this did not make it to the Malaysian cinemas. Also that there aren’t any toys based on this movie.
My only gripe is that the ending was a little ambiguous though and viewers may be left wondering what the ending meant.

Rating: 7/10

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9 [Blu-ray]