The movie “9” is asinine to say the least. The underdeveloped and overly hyped 79-minute movie—if one can even call it that—is awful.
Save the $9.50 movie ticket price, save the later DVD price and save the Saturday night movie premiere to HBO time.
Director and story creator for “9,” Shane Acker, gets his feature debut on the silver screen by introducing to viewers his nine cat-sized, hand-knit puppets to save earth from giant-sized robots that have wiped out humanity. That’s pretty much it for the plot, really.
The movie is based off Acker’s 2005 video animation that was a hit on the Internet and it should have stayed that way.
Acker’s ten minute and 38 second animation introduced Web heads around the world to only two out of the nine stitched up characters.
It was imaginative, short and sweet. No character development and voice-overs were needed and no background story was needed because it was not expected. It was a gem in its own league.
Unfortunately, Acker stepped into the big leagues and worked with big name director and screenwriter Tim Burton to take his short film to the big screen. That hopeful feat turned into a big fail.
Most people who are familiar with Burton understand his abstract and uncanny films. Take the 1990 movie, “Edward Scissorhands” for example. The movie was written and directed by Burton. The movie was strange, a little frightening, but many understood it. It was about an almost perfect gentleman that had scissors for hands.
“9,” on the other hand, had the small amount of frightening moments and it had the weird factor, but it did not make any sense. Why were stitched up dolls fighting elephant-sized robots? I mean, how could they?
One numbered character actually wielded a sword that was made out of a half scissor tied onto a rusty nail—and destroyed a robot with it.
This movie sullies Burton’s good name because he was Acker’s producer and being the veteran that he is, he should have blown the whistle on the poor chap.
With feature-length films, filmmakers must include something called a plot. Good movies have a well-developed plot. The movie “9” did not have one. Throwing in a few more characters, voice-overs with the likes of Elijah Wood and adding 69 more minutes of screen time is the equivalent of someone trying to stretch their 15 minutes of fame into an hour.
Yes, the crowd was overwhelmingly large on opening night. One girl even copped a seat inside the theatre’s stairway because seats were very limited.
Groups turned and left after not being able to find four or five seats in a row to sit together. “Woos” and “yeahs” were heard as the movie began, but by the time the gloomy-themed movie rolled the credits, the audience matched that of the movie: sad.