A film originally conceived as a short, “9” uses sight and sound that grabs the viewer’s senses and doesn’t let go. That being said, the plot and underlying theme bring down the quality, making it only an average flick.
Shane Acker, a film student, originally released the short film as a student project. It won numerous awards, and Tim Burton took a special interest in the film, offering to produce a full length version.
The plot of the movie involves the title character, 9, and his quest to find a purpose in a post-apocalyptic world. Because of the strive for greater technology, humanity has made the fatal flaw of creating a self replicating, sentient machine who turns on its creators.
9 is a stitchpunk (a doll-like machine that is made of small fibers). It becomes evident that he is the ninth creation of an old scientist, and the nine creations are the last remaining civilized beings on the planet.
9 awakens to a dark and dreary world. He quickly notices the corpse of an old man, who he assumes is his creator. But he also finds a small, mysterious talisman which he keeps as he ventures out into the unknown.
9 first meets another stitchpunk like him, who calls himself 2. In the midst of conversation, they meet a hostile, cat-like machine. 2 saves 9 from capture, but is captured by the beast in the process.
After wandering throughout the ruined city, 9 is found by 5, another stitchpunk. 5 takes him back to his hideout with three others. After 9 and 5 argue over 2’s fate, they set off to save him from the cat-beast.
In a confrontation with the cat-beast, 7, a warrior stitchpunk, defeats the monster and saves the others.
Upon meeting 7 and rescuing 2, 9 accidentally reactivates the self-replication machine, who immediately drains 2 of his life and begins creating more monstrous machines bent on eliminating all of the stitchpunks.
9 then realizes that he was created to fill a higher purpose and goes with other members of the survivors to find out why they were created and how to stop the machine from creating a world independent of life.
All in all, “9” is a good movie on the surface. However, the ending leaves the viewer with many questions are formulated from a generally weak plot. Also, the recurring theme of man’s tinkering with technology and its eventual betrayal is pounded into the film despite its obvious appearance.
In its attempt to appeal to both older and younger audiences, the film shares a few particularly gruesome scenes. In order to display the atrocities committed by both sides, hints are given to the viewer. These include (but are not limited to) corpses, gassings and particularly agonizing clips involving the machines sucking out the soul of the stitchpunks.
Tim Burton’s traits are seen in the movie. The beautiful design of some scenes leaves the audience breathless, with fear or admiration.
Certain qualities of “9” keep the movie back from being the jaw-dropping, visual masterpiece that it could have been. However, “9” should not be considered a bad movie either. The normal flicks that come out of Tim Burton’s production are works of art, and “9” did not live up to the reputation.