“9/28/2009, 4:05pm EST”
9
On a lark I decided to go see 9. My thoughts in no particular order (mild spoilers):
- Visually, it was quite beautiful.
- I was very disappointed by the lazy voice acting among the main characters — Elijah Wood gave a better performance than his peers, but not by much. (Jennifer Connelly and John C. Reilly were particularly bad.) I don’t understand how newcomer director Shane Acker could take it to print as such, except that he might have felt intimidated by his more established actors. A shame.
- Why must villainous movie creatures that give chase — dinosaurs, or trolls, or, in this case, robotic cats — take the time to irrationally roar at their quarry? This happens in movies ALL THE TIME, and it is an obvious move of convenience, extending the chase scene and/or allowing the protagonist of the moment to escape. Memo to filmmakers: some of us notice these kinds of things and it destroys our experience of your movie.
- The metaphysics of the movie is nonsensical, starting with the existence of a soul, followed by the division and insertion of that soul into 9 canvas/metal dolls who breathe without lungs. It gets less plausible from there.
- Action sequences are just strings of randomly lucky events that lack purpose and arc. They feel like time-fillers, nothing more.
- The back story lacks creativity in content and execution — machines turn on man, then destroy the planet, and this is conveyed to us via 1950s style newscast flashbacks. Yes, science can be an abomination and humanity is quite a bit more arrogant and flawed than most of us readily admit, but the film treats this subject with minimal conceptual sophistication and without taking any risks. Why do we ask so little of ourselves and our art? Again, lazy.
- The overly fast pace damaged plausibility and rapport, inhibiting engagement with the story and acceptance of its premises. It’s not good when a movie viewer thinks to himself: “They’re probably trying to save animation time or money by making this a shorter film.” That’s not why we pay $12.50.
- By the end, we’re sort of told what this is all supposed to mean, but that explanation is completely empty. Literally meaningless.
Wish I had nicer things to say, but oh well! —Dan
Never leave home without it.
