When I first saw the trailer for 9 I was excited. Having read Hellboy for years I am familiar with the idea of the rebirth of mankind so I immediately pieced together that as a major plot point of the movie. However everything else I was able to piece together on my own just from the trailer is about all we were given.
Visually 9 is a treat. The character designs and animation are absolutely wonderful, both the doll creatures as well as the mechanical monsters. The drab, muted colors of the post apocalyptic world somehow manage to pop and create a wonderful landscape for the story to take place in.
And that story is where the problems lie. A main flaw is that it is almost entirely action with very few slow downs which makes it feel like the chapter of one story instead of one story broken into three chapters, though the ending is clearly the ending (though of course there’s a possibility of a sequel).
Another flaw is that when things do slow down, no one seems to ask the very obvious question: Where did these creatures (the dolls) come from? It is revealed that they all remember everything about their lives from the moment they awoke, but that’s it. They know plenty of the world and how it came to be the way it is, but none of them even seem remotely curious about where they came from, why they were created, and in the end they find out by sheer coincidence. And coincidentally this fact is a primary key to their survival and future. Plus it wasn’t even difficult for them to learn as they more or less stumble across it while looking for something else.
It’s not a bad story, but it’s not gripping either. However I have no doubt that especially with the addition of Tim Burton as a producer, teenagers will love this movie until they get old enough to realize that it is a very flat story with cool visuals and nothing else. Heck even I’ll admit that I would’ve loved this as a teenager. The problem is that in the grand scheme of things, depending on the simple mindedness of teenagers to like a movie is no excuse to tell a poorly executed story with a lot of potential.
