When our world ends — like really ends — let’s pray that little burlap dolls aren’t left to fix our mistakes. Although, at that point it's unlikely anyone will be around to do any praying. Hell, at that point dolls or even rusty carburetors could be tasked with the cleanup and either way mankind wouldn't peep a single complaint. I watched 9 keenly, absorbed by its post-apocalyptic detail and its well-choreographed action, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you why six-inch-tall ragdolls were given the job of saving the world. Or why a scientist, who could inject his soul into anything, would choose forms so tiny and so incapable of preserving man’s dual legacy of hope and destruction. I question this part of the plot, but let that be my only complaint on this strikingly different animated film.
In 9, it’s the not-too-distant future and scientists have created artificial intelligence, which will be invented to be villains in movies like this or the Terminator franchise. Notice the “peacekeeping” machines that first roll off the assembly line: they all have chaingun turrets to, you know, keep the peace. Of course, the AI responds to man’s control with hostile force and eventually every city on the planet is a smoking crater of poison gas and brimming with the stench of death.
Living in the smoldering remnants of man are the nine little stitched dolls, each named in the order that they were made. 9 is the last one created and he awakes in confusion: what is his purpose, he wonders, as he claws through the detritus of splintered wood, powdered brick and decaying bodies. This movie is not shy with its treatment of death, and it rightfully earns its PG-13 rating; think twice before bringing little ones. Eventually 9 (Elijah Wood) meets up with the other eight sack people, including fear-mongering leader 1 (Christopher Plummer), gadget guru 5 (John C. Reilly), sexy fighter 7 (Jennifer Connelly) and loony tune 6 (Crispin Glover). Their purpose in this apocalyptic landscape, they reason, is to hide from the last of the nomadic machines as it scours the cracks for things to kill.
Surely life has more purpose, free-spirited rebel 2 (Martin Landau) says. He’s proven right after 9 finds a thimble-like artifact that accidentally turns the machines of war back on after their battery life expired long ago. Before they could hide in fear, but with fresh smoke billowing from the factories of death, the nine now have to fight or be crushed in a second apocalypse. The movie never establishes the nine’s importance well enough that we can accept their role in ending this world-obliterating calamity, but the nine believe it and that counts for something.
I love the style and feel of this film. The sack people, with their zippered fronts and hand-stitched joints — apparently this is called “stitch punk” — are terrific, albeit outlandish, subjects. They have these can-like eyes with snapping little apertures for eyelids that allow for full, expressive emotions. The villains they fight, assembled from the rubble of the wasteland, are equally impressive as harpoon-tailed pterodactyls, wormy snakes that can cocoon victims in scarlet thread, and a robotic cat with a real cat skull for its head. The bombed-out landscape provides many opportunities for these two sides to battle, and battle they do on the crashed wing of a bomber, on the plains of the war-ravaged countryside, and on the mechanical arms of a brain machine. Mostly I liked this film because it was completely original. When was the last time an animated film used the post-apocalypse as a setting? Or featured death in such a challenging way? Or had non-human characters that weren’t talking animals? You can answer all three questions with “never” or “almost never.”
Like Coraline before it from earlier this year, 9 presents a frightening story and tells it in an inventive, unforgiving way. Children need not be coddled so diligently in this day and age. If they can handle it, let them be a little scared with 9 and its unique burlap heroes.
And just because I love the 9 artwork, here's more:
