9

Watched 9 at the Cinema last week. I knew absolutly nothing about this film at all. I wasn't even sure if it was live action or animated, as all I had seen was the movie poster for it. What I did know was that it involved Tim Burton, and most of his films are fantastic.

9 is a computer animated film. It looks utterly fantastic with materials in the film looking real. Effects have really advanced from the days of films such as A Bugs Life. I guess technology just keeps on getting better.

The film is set post armageddon in what appears to be a Russian state. It starts with a small sack doll coming to life in a house. He looks outside the building to see a landscape of ruination. Collapsed buildings, rusty broken cars, and corpses eveywhere. He spots a similer looking doll out on a street, so hurries to catch up with it. The 2nd doll is called 2, the original is numbered 9. After revealing to 9 that there are others like them they are attacked by a lethal looking robotic/clockwork cat which carries 2 off to a giant factory. 9 is found by another doll (3?) who takes him to a giant cathedral where the other dolls are hiding out under the orders of the dolls leader 1 who wants everyone to remain there until the monster (the cat thing that stole 2) has died. Ignoring his orders 9 heads out to go to the factory and rescue 2. This leads to the discovery of more live dolls, as well as the reawakening of a terrible evil which may well have been the cause of the armageddon they were born into.

The film is morose and dark, which I guess it is hard not to be being set in a devastated town with dead bodies of humans everywhere. Being around 15cm tall the dolls appear out of place in the dead world, being dwarfed by everything, and getting around using tools left over from the humans world. They all look fantastic, and lifelike, and the robots appear deadly and insane.

It is a bizarre film, and odd, I come away not really knowing what I thought of it, it feels really unique and different. As mentioned it is kind of downbeat with many character deaths, and the flashbacks to pre armageddon. A good film, and fresh.