9 Review ~ Colton

I started 9 wanting to like it. The previews and promotional posters were enticingly dark, the premise seemed creative, and Tim Burton has only ever disappointed me once (screw you, Corpse Bride. Way to waste an hour plus of my life). Sadly, I was underwhelmed yet again, and for very similar reasons to why Avatar didn't strike a chord with me.

The basic plot of 9: a bunch of dolls try to fight a robot. One of these dolls is Elijah Wood. No one cares about any of the other dolls, because one of these dolls is Elijah Wood. There are eight dolls and Elijah Wood, for a grand total of nine dolls (hence the title). The following is a comprehensive list of all nine dolls, going over each of their personality quirks and characteristics in the most detailed manner possible.

1: A tyrant, and basically a huge dick.
2: Old.
3: A twin, doesn't talk.
4: A twin, doesn't talk.
5: Has one eye. Other than this, he is exactly like 9.
6: Crazy.
7: A girl.
8: Big, stupid.
9: ELIJAH WOOD. Also has two eyes. Other than that, exactly like 5.

Each doll has less character development and personality than the last. All of the relationships between these characters seem forced and contrived: everyone accepts 9 into their party only because he's numbered, and they befriend him almost instantly, without even taking the time to develop any sort of feelings for each other. The only people who don't take to 9 are 1 and 8, because 1 has the highest number and feels entitled to authority, and because 8 is 1's toadie.

At the beginning of the movie, I wondered to myself why it deserved a PG-13 rating. The atmosphere was a bit dark, certainly, but 9 was downright cute, and most of the setting, while jagged and rough, seemed mostly harmless. My answer came three minutes in when 9 discovers a dead woman cradling her dead baby. Understand that this wasn't a random dead baby: 9 is a post-apocalyptic politcal allegory, but still. Dead baby. This movie means business.

Dead baby aside, the movie has a fairly simple plot: 9 wakes up in a demolished laboratory next to a dead old man and a golden talisman. He takes the talisman, runs out into the demolished world, finds 2. 2 gets carried off by a robot cat. 5 finds 9, they meet 1, 6, and 8, and 5 and 9 run off to find 2, much to 1's disapproval. 5 and 9 find 2, but the robocat attacks them. 7 comes out of nowhere and kills the cat. 9 puts the talisman in a port that he finds, awakening a giant, evil robot. 5, 7, and 9 run away to find 3 and 4, who then go to find 6, only to be intercepted by 1 and 8. Then a steampunk pterodactyl attacks them. They all go to find the giant, evil robot, but 8 and 7 get captured by a robot snake with a human skull for a head. 8 is killed by the robot. They blow up the robot, but it turns out they didn't blow it up well enough, because it comes back to kill 5 and 6. 9 travels back to the lab from whence he came and learns that each of the dolls contains a piece of the dead old man's soul. It turns out that the old man was a scientist, and that he created the giant, evil robot, but it was originally intended to be giant, not evil robot, but the big, bad government took care of that and made the giant, not evil robot kill all humans for reasons unexplained. The scientist then put his soul into each of the 9 dolls so that humanity would live on. 9 runs to share this news with his friends, but when he arrives, they are attacked by the robot. The robot kills 1. 9 kills the robot and takes the talisman back. 9 releases the souls of 1, 2, 5, 6, and 8 from the talisman and they float into the sky. The movie ends with rain and 9 saying that the world is their oyster.

The real problem in the movie: nothing happens. Or, rather, nothing happens for a reason. Why does the giant, evil robot want the souls of the dolls? Why did the scientist split his soul into nine instead of just making one really great doll for his soul? If all the dolls come from the same soul, why do they all have different personalities? Why did the scientist make 2, 5, and 9 essentially the same in appearance while the other six are totally different? The movie provides no answers.

I said before that 9 was an allegorical movie with a political spin. It's making a statement that the government corrupts even the most pure things that can be created (the scientist made the giant, evil robot for peace-making purposes, and the government barged in, confiscated the machine, and ended the world). If you're paying attention, you'll pick up on this. However, there is about three minutes of statement and roughly an hour-and-a-half of the movie cramming steampunk bullshit down your throat and pretending it has a real story. The most steadfast believers in 9's political significance could say that the fact that nothing was adequately explained could be symbolic of government censorship. To that I say: "Bullshit, guy. You can't make a bad movie into a symbol." And the believer will cry and cry, and I will laugh and flaunt my opinion as I backhand them repeatedly.

But I digress. 9 was very much like James Cameron's Avatar: interesting to look at with a creative atmosphere, but severely lacking in the areas of plot and character development. If you really must watch a Tim Burton movie, rent Nightmare Before Christmas. Not Corpse Bride.

Never Corpse Bride.

Overall Score: 5/10