When Tim Burton gets his mind set on something, he’ll do everything he can to support it. In 2005, Shane Acker’s animated short film 9 swept festivals around the world, and the famous Hollywood director decided to take on the task of turning it into a feature film. With him producing and Acker directing, 9 reached theaters around the world, telling a story similar to the short and featuring animation just as unusual as the latter’s. The film isn’t written directly by Tim Burton, but the filmmaker’s inspiration from Shane Acker’s work is undoubtedly evident.
What is 9 about?
In a world parallel to ours, humanity began a few years ago a long battle against the machines. After being created by humans, these machines rebelled and ended up destroying their inventors, who were actually victims of their eternal search for advances in science and technology. In the midst of the conflict between humans and machines, a scientist gave shape to some small humanoid creatures.
When creating the ninth of them (9), it died. When 9 wakes up, he cannot speak, and is unaware of the post-apocalyptic world he finds himself in. There are no humans anymore, and although he soon meets a being like himself (5), he also discovers that there are powerful and very dangerous machines. Now that humanity has disappeared, it seems that 9 and his people are the last living beings that separate the machines from absolute domination.
The Cast
The film features the talent of renowned actors, who give an incomparable personality to all the main characters. 9 is voiced by Elijah Wood, Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, while the other numbers are played by Christopher Plummer (1), Martin Landau (2), John C. Reilly (5), Crispin Glover (6), Jennifer Connelly (7), and Fred Tatasciore (8). Numbers 3 and 4, the twins, do not speak, but the choice of voices is more than appropriate.
Regarding the director, as we said, it is clear that Shane Acker has followed the work of Tim Burton, since his style resembles the filmmaker in some aspects. Unfortunately, after 9 he has not directed any other films, although he has directed two short films: Plus Minus and Crusoe.
The Movie
9 is not an animated production for children, neither because of its graphic style, very atypical, dark, and post-apocalyptic, nor because of the story. It’s one of those animated films for adults, with a slow plot development in its introduction and much more agile in the main part, with confrontations, flashbacks to uncover and fill in plot holes, and an ending that, while not entirely happy, satisfies a more mature audience.
Compared to the original short film, screenwriter Pamela Pettler has made some well-justified changes considering the change in format. For example, in Acker’s short, 9 was the sole protagonist, with Number 5 appearing in some of the film’s early scenes. With the involvement of the other numbers, the film gains dynamism and allows for a universe in which it’s important to develop 9’s personality in his interactions with the other characters in the story.
Is 9 good?
What caught our attention most about the film was its length: 80 minutes, not even an hour and a half, something that’s becoming easily accessible in the animated genre. We don’t know if the film was cut significantly for its release in theaters around the world, but we noticed that “something” is missing from the adventure’s development. With 20 or 30 more minutes to develop the interesting world conceived by Acker, we would have been much more satisfied. In any case, we liked it, a lot, but we only recommend it to an adult audience, as it’s not a film at all appealing to the little ones in the house. They, except in specific cases, will be bored.
