9

Released 9th September 2009 (09/09/09), 9 was directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton, known for Nightmare Before Christmas and Batman 1989. The film was expected to be a captivating yet creepy film. The plot centres around a life-infused ragdoll waking up in a post-apocalyptic war brought about by a machine uprising.

The voice cast are fine overall. Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly do a fine job however John C Reilly easily gives the best vocal performance out of everyone with his usual charisma. Parallel to this the characters are very much of the same: 9 [Wood] is your stereotypical hero who makes a mistake and must correct it to save the world. 7 (Connelly] is your battle-hardened female in the wake of an apocalypse who still needs saving by the protagonist. Once again John C Reilly’s character 5 is a standout who manages to be likeable, courageous, timid and tragic. As for the villain; ‘The Machine’ is the same evil robot we’ve been getting since The Terminator in 1984

and that goes for the plot too. It’s a typical defeat the machine to restore the Earth story which, yet again, we’ve been getting since The Terminator in 1984. To its credit it seems to attempt a message against fascism, which would have been intriguing, but it unfortunately gets lost amidst everything else. Much like the plot, the soundtrack is nothing special and fails to leave any fresh impacts. The only saving grace for the apocalyptic setting is the unique designs of the characters (Google ‘9 movie Seamstress’) although even in this regard the animation falters at times. As Tom Huddlestone from Time Out puts it; “This film will surely be remembered as an intriguing failure”. The ideas were there, and Burton’s creative horrors were present; just without any subversive takes on what even in 2009 was a dying genre.