Movie Review: 9

"9" is a post apocalyptic, animated action-adventure film produced by Tim Burton and directed by Shane Ackner. The film is based on a short film of the same name which garnered an academy award nomination in 2005.


I had very high expectations for 9, being produced by Tim Burton and being a true juggernaut of voice acting talent, starring Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer. However the movie's star studded cast could not save it from a common fate among overambitious science fiction movies.


I'll begin with the one thing the film did right. The movies CGI is beautifully rendered and sets a realistic stage on which the story unfolds, the animation is fluid and lifelike, taking advantage of the odd cast of characters and setting to create consistently explosive set pieces for the entirety of the film. On a side note, given the budget of the film I didn't expect anything less then extraordinary when it came to the special effects.


The unfortunate reality of 9 is that despite the gorgeous images that appear on the screen, the story and voice acting serve as the anchors that drag the movie down into mediocrity. The first major disappointment was Elijah Wood's performance. Wood's character is the driving force of the story with the most "Emotional" dialog in the script and yet he reads without any enthusiasm or originality. His voice acting sticks out from the rest of the cast as irritating and generic,making the main character very unbelievable in the context of the story. On the subject of the plot, 9's story begins well but trips over its own feet as the movie goes on, eventually becoming so convoluted that the climax literally makes no sense and directly contradicts information given earlier. There is no doubt that Ackner had a very talented staff of writers, however it seems as if their ambition to shove as many "Cool Ideas" into the script conquered any sense of fluency the movie might have had.

"9" Nine was not a terrible movie by any means, but given how much money, time, and promotion went into this film I can say that I was truly disappointed by the slapdash story and mediocre voice acting that would have otherwise fulfilled the hype that brought so many into the theater to see it.