9

9. The new movie produced by Tim Burton and director of Wanted (name not important), is an animated film with a darker tone than most, taking place in a post apocalyptic world and jumping into the lives of the last surviving creatures; 9 ragdolls given the gift of life. So how does this movie fair as a Burton film? Or how does it stand in comparison to other animated movies or movies in general? The answer to all of these rhetorical questions; It was one of the biggest disappointments of the year.
I was very excited to see this movie, thinking that it couldn’t possibly be bad. It’s a movie about ragdolls in the apocalypse (Typical Burton). The animation looked fantastic, and Tim Burton, well..its fucking Tim Burton. But although the animation was excellent, it couldn’t save the movie from its numerous disastrous mistakes.
STORY
This movie focused a lot on the effects of the movie, and didn’t take into account the fact that story is often needed to make a movie. This entire film was based off a 9-minute short film and that’s all this movie really is; an extended short film that just uses cool visuals and terrible dialogue as filler space.
Now as I am writing this review, I’m keeping in mind that I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, but then I also realize that there is no story to spoil. So I will give the basic idea of the movie (if there is one) and try not to talk about any key events in the movie (because there are just so damn many).
So life has ended on earth. Mankind had been trying to kill each other since the beginning of time, now they finally had the tools to finish the job (I feel the need to put in at least one Watchmen quote in about every single review). But somehow, life continued as 9 ragdolls were given a soul by a scientist, who died transferring his soul into them (apparently he was confused on how Horcruxes worked). 9, waking up in an empty world, comes across another ragdoll, 2. 2 tells him that he is a friend and that they should get to a safe place. And Just as he says it, a creepy robot rat skeleton thing (typical Burton) attacks the two, and 9, in standard heroic fashion, hides in a can, while 2 gets dragged away. Oh sad face. I miss this character that we grew to love in the 3 bland lines of dialogue he had. 9 reaches the others; 1,5,6 and 8. 1 is a douchebag. 8 is a tool. 6 is a nutcase. And 5 is John C. Reilly. That about sums up their characters. After 5 more bland lines of dialogue, 9 and 5 go to save 2, and they find him in an abandoned factory, where they also find 7. But 9, in heroic fashion, activates a huge evil robot who has no other purpose than to consume souls, and kills 2. And 9,5, and 7, in heroic fashion, flee. They meet up with the twins, 3 and 4 and together, they try to figure out what must be done in order to survive…..or something.
This movie has some of the most horrendous dialogue I have ever heard. I haven't heard words as bad as this since Batman and Robin. It isn’t pointless dialogue, or dialogue that tries to be funny but isn’t (and thank god for that, since the last time Tim Burton went funny was Pee Wee’s Big Adventure….yeah). But this writing is so bland, overly simplistic, and just fucking stupid. These are actual quotes in the movie: “we need to find him” “no” “lets go” “do it” “I’ll do it” “ill go” “no” “we need to be safe” “they helped us. Now we should help them” “NO” “go” “find the source” “NOOOOOOOOO”. All thats missing is "Its the car. Chicks dig the car". This bad writing leads to the next problem. Bad story.
There is no plot here. There could have been, but there wasn’t. Its just ragdolls trying to survive. That’s it. Despite the fact that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world, the problems they encounter are really rather insignificant since they are just ragdolls. There is nothing compelling, nothing that is remotely interesting, and nothing meaningful in this movie. Shane Acker had many chances to make this movie have some sort of message, but he never does. It’s a sci-fi movie where mankind killed itself out of their greed for power. That’s far too easy. Talk about how mankind’s savage nature will inevitably lead to its destruction (watchmen quote 2), talk about how the advancement in technology makes man lose sight of what really matters in the world. Wall-E understood what happens when mankind screws with technology. That is a theme that is beaten to death, and it still didn’t occur to Mr. Acker, that his movie needed to make some sort of statement.
As many of you know, I'm kinda big on story. I love character development and good dialogue more than anything in movies (this is why I like Pulp Fiction, 25th Hour, Watchmen, and the show LOST and care slightly less for Transformers, and Year One). So because of the fact that this movie is lacking in both story and characters is well...quite sad.
CHARACTERS
9- Elijah Wood did a decent voice acting job though I think he was just hired because he is really good at shouting epic NO’s. Despite the acting, 9 is a very unlikable character who is the main cause of everything bad that happens in the movie.
8- Although people disagree with me, 8 was my favorite character. Sure he’s a dick to people, and he just follows orders from 1, but still, he’s badass. And he’s responsible for me favorite part of the movie: He gets high off of putting a magnet to his head. And the best part of his character is that he doesn’t speak.
7- Jennifer Connolly plays 7, a badass…woman? What’s this nonsense. A female defend the males from danger in the future? How absurd. Well, despite her fighting ability, she, like most of the characters, has no personality. She is the lover, girlfriend, wife, daughter, niece, mother, cousin, pet, slave, or something of 2. 2 dies. She cries. 5 minutes later she is ok….I know these ragdolls only have 1/9 of a soul apiece but that is just stupid, movie. This character sucks, and has no emotion. Moving on.
6- This is another typical character that we have seen in a plenty of other movies. That guy who at the beginning of the movie is insane, but at the end it turns out he was right all along. Not much to say here. There really is not development.
5- How did John C. Riley do this badly? I think he is a great actor (when he does dramatic movies.[No, Step Brothers does not count as a dramatic movie]). His voice acting was just very…fake. Although partial blame goes to the writers (and the lack of writing they did) Riley just doesn’t seem to add much. Sorry.
4- nothing. They can’t speak...yeah
3- nothing. They can’t speak… yeah
2- He dies like 5 minutes in. I got nothing.
1-This character is one of the more interesting ones (though that doesn’t say much). 1 is the oldest of the group and is considered their leader. He is not a man of action, but wants to keep everyone safe, even if that means someone getting killed off. But again, because of the writers hatred of storytelling and character development, 1 never changes or gets a chance to be explained. Like every other character, he ends up becoming very bland.
The Brain- ok, this is one of the better things in the movie. The brain is a terrifying machine created as an almost doomsday weapon by the humans. It is destructive, intelligent, and scary. A worthy antagonist, though it was still brought down a bit by the story. Oh well.
OVERALL
There is no story, the characters aren’t developed, they aren’t likable, and they don’t do anything except for fighting robots (and they don’t even do much of that since this movie was only 75 minutes long). This movie has the depth of a small puddle, and the intelligence of…a small puddle. It did nothing but provide a slight amount of amusement from the visuals, but that was only briefly entertaining, and despite the fact that it doesn’t last long, it gets boring very quickly; much like…a small puddle. This movie had such potential; such promise, but it squandered its gifts of decent effects and tossed aside the things that mattered like story and characters, and so 9 is nothing more than a small puddle in the world of cinema.
Final rating: 3/10