(Courtesy of Focus Features)
“9” is, in a word, boring. It takes a movie cliché, the post-apocalyptic world, and then attempts to make it original by making it so that all humans truly are gone. All that is left in this world gone awry are nine sack dolls and some truly grotesque evil robots.
Many hoped “9” would be one of the few original movies in a Hollywood landscape where derivative franchises like “The Fast and Furious” and “Final Destination” series are produced again and again.
Unfortunately, despite its interesting premise, the movie fails in a multitude of ways. It plays on almost every movie trope imaginable. It begins with 9 (Elijah Wood) awakening to a ravaged war-torn world with his creator dead. He then begins exploring and discovers other sack-doll creatures similar to himself as well as some creepy-looking evil robots set to kill him and all his kind.
Why?
Who knows, and don’t expect the movie to give you any sort of answer.
The movie then meanders along for the next 79 minutes. 9 is curious, 1 (Christopher Plummer) is their leader who is very fearful and believes curiosity will just get them all killed and 7 (Jennifer Connelly), the lone female sack doll, is rebellious and fearless. There are bad robots out to get them. They run around evading said evil robots while attempting to figure out what it is they should do.
9 falls in love with 7 basically as soon as he meets her and she speaks (probably because he couldn’t fall in love with her before she spoke since her voice is the only thing that distinguishes her as female).
The only upside to “9”, if there is any at all, would be the stunning visuals. The post-apocalyptic landscape is truly memorable and the evil robots are truly twisted in the same way that the child Sid from “Toy Story” is twisted. Unfortunately, other than the visuals and explosions, the movie offers little to nothing other than lack of character development and tired clichés.
The ending is extremely anti-climatic, possibly because the movie never really seemed to have any discernible climax at any point, and leaves some important questions unanswered.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Ellie Bean at beanee@colorado.edu.
2 comments
Just so you know, “9” had no relation whatsoever to Tim Burton like your title says. The director of the film was Shane Acker. The screenplay was written by Pamela Pettler.
Although Tim Burton didn’t direct or write the film, he did produce the film along with two other people.