Review of 9!

Once Hollywood sinks it's teeth into something, its kind of hard to make it let go, and so it goes with the huge number of dystopian, end of the world scenarios that have recently paraded down the Mad Max pike. Thanks so much to 2012 for the grim futures it has inspired...one wonders if actually good things might happen in the future... with humanity somehow avoiding destroying itself... or otherwise creating totalitarian regimes to enslave everybody.

Now that my rant is over, the film 9 presents us with an end of the world scenario that is at least somewhat more original than most of it's overtired brethren. In this dark but beautiful, used up world, imagined by director Shane Acker, humanity destroys itself a la Terminator with a war machine basically laying the boom down with the sole exception of a scientist who has created small doll sized robots made up of metal, burlap bags, and a spark of human soul. The dolls, each named by a number in the series, 1...2...3....you get the idea, find themselves in a battle to the death when the long dead head machine is inadvertently reawakened to once again wreak havoc on any creative life spark it might find. As you might expect, the irony here is almost biblical as these slightly human creations of a human find themselves at war with an inhuman creation of a human.

The true artistry of 9 and it's originality lie in the execution of the film's overused theme of technology without human ethics is bad....the animated world of 9 is lush in it's stark, Road Warriorish beauty while the action of the characters is seamless and yet stylized...like any good thinking man's action film. The dialogue while predictable, is above average as are the vocal performances of Elijah (Frodo) Wood, John C. Reilly, and a very good Christopher Plummer. The feeling here was that if this film was made in the way it is made, say ten years ago, this might have been considered somewhat of a classic. As some reviewers have mentioned, it seems to have just missed it's mark, becoming unique in the form but not in the function. 9 never adds anything new to the end of the world mythology, except in the form that presents the quickly becoming boring themes. While remarkable in it's beauty, 9 left me shrugging my shoulders and moving on to the next cinematic Armageddon.

TH Review's rating of 9: Three out of Five stars!