9: Why College Is So Important

So there's this guy, we'll call him Ane Shacker.  He grows up as the quiet kid in class who doesn't speak much even when you're trying to have a conversation with him.  In high school he doodles through history instead of taking notes, and comes up with some pretty cool sketches.  When he goes off to art school, he's already got this idea floating around in his head:  it's for this group of little guys made out fabrics and nick-nacks, and he sketches them a lot.  Pretty much every project he does features these little guys in some way, and in the ones where he can't he tries to find ways to fit references in anyway.  In portraits they show up as logos on shirts; in pictures of flowers they're silhouetted in the background.  He doesn't mind that they look corny, he's more into computer arts anyway.  Eventually he starts developing a story for them, too.

Somewhere along the line, Ane gets lucky.  He's showing off some of his digital sketches to someone important, and they think it's great stuff.  He gets some money and some buddies willing to work for tiny amounts of money, and they put together pieces.  This is looking even better now, and a big studio is even thinking about picking them up.  Things start going fast; they get more money, more people, and pretty soon they've got a whole movie made about these guys!  Damn they look cool, too.  Tim Burton's even signed on to hook his name up with the publicity.  Ane's dream has come true!  He's gotten his little doll-guys onto the big screen!  Now everyone can see his sketches in full 3D!  But wait, shit, were they supposed to write a story to go along with it somewhere in there?  Ane's always pictured them as fighting soul stealing robots, so some of those get thrown in.  The robots look cool, too, because Ane did a series of roboty looking things back in school.  Yeah!  Movie done!

Okay, so that's probably a bit off from the facts.  Maybe.  Check out this imdb page, though.  Yes, that's a link to 9, a short film made by the same guy who made the movie this review is about.  A short film made in 2005.  Wikipedia says it took 4 and a half years to make, so this thing's been in the works since 2000!  This guy's been working on this project his whole life!  It's his baby.  It's just too bad he didn't hang out more around the English department so that he'd make some friends that can write.

9 looks awesome, you can't argue with that.  I'm always looking for animated movies that target themselves at people above the age of 4.  It's just that I want them to make sense, too, and this movie doesn't.

The plot is... well, take all the post-apocalyptic stories and all the AI gets too advanced and kills all the humans stories, put them together, shake them up, and draw out like 6 at random.  Chop those up, use a couple pieces from each, and voila:  you've got 9.  Evil machine creatures?  Check.  A band of people seemingly alone in the world?  Check.  Each of them is a boring stereotype?  Check.  Beautiful sky above the clouds but dry crappy world beneath it?  Clues hidden by someone who came before this group about what they should do to survive?  Sacrifice of the selfish guy who turns noble at the last minute?  Cool explosions?  All checks.  Seriously, it's a boring plot, and it's full of holes.  There's something about souls being sucked out of our numbered heroes, and something about saving them from the machines.  There's a deux ex machina ending.  There's even a fucking HAL9000 style red circle for the evil bad machine's "face".  Everything is a cliche.  My dad speculated that some of the scenes were actually homages to other movies, but we both thought hard and couldn't come up with anything.  Conclusion:  the scenes are all so cliched that it just feels like they're homages because they're so fucking overused.

But enough about the bad.  I'm only so pissed because I was hoping the plot would be good so that animation as a genre could take a step forward.  And because it would have been SO EASY to give it a mediocre plot instead of a bad, nonsensical one.  Why would you want to see 9?  Here's some reasons:

Yeah baby.  That last one especially; it may not look like much, but that snake slash machine thing is awesomely creepy.  You've gotta see it to appreciate just how disturbing it is, but basically it uses one of the puppets that has died as bait for the rest of them, hypnotizes them with the dead puppet's eyes, then picks up the limp bodies, sews them with blood red thread into a subdued form, then puts them inside itself to carry back to the machine lair.  It's terrifying.

The character design is also great.  It's an intriguing puzzle:  how does one differentiate nine of these little rag doll guys?  Each opens up along the chest, and each closes in a different way (buttons, zipper, shoe laces, etc).  Each has different looking eyes.  Each is made from a different fabric.  More impressive is how each of these design choices helps bring across the doll's personality.  The hunter has a bone mask.  The girl looks softer and lighter than the rest.  The angry guy has different eyes, more capable of looking angry and suspicious.  The librarians are small, thin, and don't speak.  Every one of them looks unique and cool.

Man, I could sit here all day and talk about how cool looking this movie is.  I could also sit here for the same amount of time and bitch about the stupid plot.  If you just want a sweet looking 80 minutes, what are you waiting for.  Otherwise, you can pass this one up.

Hey, it beats an art museum.

SAM'S VERDICT:  Easy on the eyes, just bring some earplugs.