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 (091709) There are very few visionaries left in Hollywood,
with even fewer arriving every day - and with good reason. It’s not easy
pitching your quirky, esoteric product to a group of suits solely interested in
the bottom line. Today’s business model is about money, not the mind’s eye. Not
matter how artistically pleasing or aesthetically sound, you just can’t stay
completely true to your muse and not face some strong commercial (and career)
backlash. That’s why Shane Acker’s story is so intriguing. After an Oscar
nomination highlighted his beautiful, baroque animation approach, filmmakers Tim
Burton and Timur Bekmambetov championed his jump to feature films. The result is
9, a stunning, if narratively stunted exercise in optical bliss and plotting hit
or miss that could have been better if it wasn’t so basic.
As one of nine living burlap puppets in a desolate, post-War environment, our
title hero hooks up with the rest of his reanimated brethren: 1, a despotic
leader; 2, a kindly sage, 3 and 4, twins who work in an information archive; 5
whose one eyed façade hints at the horrors in this frightening new domain; 6,
who sees prophecy in the images he draws; 7, a female fighter with more nerve
than other of her kind, and 8, a lumbering bodyguard to 1’s stern leadership.
Together, they must figure out what happened to the human population while
stopping a massive factory-sized machine from creating destructive devices bent
on bringing about their own demise. Eventually, 9 uncovers a secret about why
he’s alive, and the power that such a status holds in bringing humanity back
from the brink of utter extinction.
9 is the kind of movie that almost breaks your heart. It shows so much promise,
but then wastes it on the same old fuddy duddy future shock storyline. After
all, how many times do we have to sit through a “man vs. machines” parable where
our arrogance and technological drive leads to our eventual undoing. Sure,
director Shane Acker dresses it all up in World War I/II paraphernalia, the
Nazi/Fascist overtones carried throughout with sledgehammer like subtlety. True,
the tone is not child friendly, but geared more toward the Goth guy/gal and geek
mentality. And yes, the voice work is teriffic, everyone from Elijah Wood (as 9)
to Crispin Glover (6), John C. Reilly (5), and Jennifer Connelly (7) spot-on in
their delivery and demeanor.
But that doesn’t make the mechanical monster mash any newer or more novel. 9
constantly reminds the audience of The Matrix (especially in the look of its
villains), The Terminator (in it’s A.I. gone gonzo themes), and numerous other
examples of the speculative type. Along with an equally schizophrenic spiritual
message - more on that in a moment - we are stuck following formulas that would
barely work at all if not for Ackers amazing artistry. Indeed, the one thing
that saves this proposed CG epic is the jaw-dropping production and character
design. Whenever the story starts to lag, whenever the references become too
recognizable or obvious, Acker delivers a robot or wide reaction shot that will
absolutely floor you. He crafts vistas that take your breath away while
populating them with particulars of equal optical excellence. Like the best kind
of magician, 9 misdirects you from the misguided man behind the curtain to
visual splendor that steals the show.
Still, we are stuck with narrative facets that don’t feel right. The whole
“soul” situation makes little or no sense, the ability to trap such an enigmatic
ideal in a tiny doll appearing counterproductive to the rest of the story’s
set-up. In fact, it feels like a cheat, a way of showing audiences that, in the
end, the human race will be saved. It doesn’t help that each of our nine leads
are locked into caricaturist confines - champion, coward, iron fisted ruler,
deliberate dreamer - making their path to the planet’s re-population sketchy at
best. And Acker never really explains his sci-fi rules here, something that is
imperative in making this material work. Clearly, he was busier with the nuts
and bolts of the film’s look than in trying to make everything in his wistful
wasteland work in a literaly sound way.
And yet 9 defies you not to be moved by its visual acumen. Acker is clearly a
genius in combining ideas, using a clever combination of the Victorian and the
high tech, the junkyard and the completely foreign to forge a unique and
memorable ideal. Sure, his puppets are nothing more than your standard
sell-through figurines, but the rest of this rotting world has a perverse polish
all its own. The villains here are undeniably evil in their cobbled together
terror tenets. While the story never knocks us out, the action sequences and
attention to detail certainly do. By the end, when we’ve wandered over from
battles to matters of belief, the contrasts become more obvious. We need the bad
to shore up the good. Without it, the treacle takes over, and the result is
something that never quite feels new, even with all the up-to-date aspects of
its approach up on the screen for all to see.
With an inferred demographic who will find this frequently flying way over their
grumbling grade-schooler heads, it’s hard to see 9 becoming anything other than
an obvious cult classic. Those who adore it will excuse the lack of narrative
nuance, while others in the cinematic sect will worship individual elements like
they are sure signs from God himself. One thing is for certain - Shane Acker has
a seemingly boundless imagination that can salvage even the most simplistic,
standardized sci-fi plot. 9 could have been a true animation masterpiece, the
kind that rarely come along outside of a place called Pixar. Instead, it wastes
a lot of creative energy on a concept that’s been done before - and frankly,
outside of the CG eye candy involved, better.
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