Category: Sci-Fi, Drama
9 is a post-apocolyptic movie with a twist. It's unlike most movies of the genre, where a group of people survives a global holocaust (usually nuclear) and tries to survive and rebuild. In this movie, nobody survives. At least, no humans.
It is a world where humans fought machines and the humans lost. However, the devastation was so complete that the machines themselves were nearly wiped out. What survived are small mechanical dolls that are as much alive as they are machines. They have name/numbers given to them by their Creator who is also apparently a Scientist. He made them unique in a way and obviously had plans for them although they rarely acknowledge his existence.
It is a hauntingly beautiful world. There is beauty in the stillness of post destruction, amongst the debris and carnage left behind. It is this world that the mechanical doll with the number 9 wakes up to. And it is in this world he is thrown into a quest he does not fully understand but knows he must take. 9 is driven by his sense of what is right but he is not at all righteously pretentious. That mantle is 1's. 9 is brought to 1 and discovers other dolls like him. This is after he survives an attack by a cat-like machine. In that attack, 9 is saved by 2, the first doll he encounters. The cat-machine takes 2 instead and 9 knows he must rescue 2. It is his first quest of many that becomes the thrust of the movie.
The world of 9 is very atmospheric yet keeps a unique look to it. It still looks at times like a beautiful painting. A beautiful painting of a devastated world. The action sequences in the movie are frantic and is shot with the best of them, with vista shots and pulls to show the scale and speed of the fight. I can go on and on about the visual aspects of the movie. Unfortunately, I can't do the same to the story.
Where do I begin? The stereotypical characters were uncalled for. Not for the depth of the actors involved in providing the voices. Christopher Plummer is unmistakable as 1 and Elijah is yet on another quest as 9. But beyond them, there is not much depth. Although the other dolls have their own interesting, unique characters, they need a wee bit more character development for the movie to work on a higher level. I wish the director focused less on the scenery and put more work on the characters.
The movies also hints at a potentially deep back story. The world before the apocalypse could be understood from the perspective of 9 who is constantly adapting to it as he is learning his way around.. However, the background and the way it is explained away too thoroughly leaves little to the imagination. The mystery of the world is lost to us as all questions are answered through explanations and vignettes. It deprives the story of it's mystery and scale. What could have been rich with possibilities is exposed a flat and predictable.
The strange and ambiguous ending also didn't help it's cause. I understood the role of pseudo-science and alchemy in the story to explain the existence of the dolls. But the ending and it's use to explain the survival of the world seems out of place and a bit jarring. I understood the "physical-renewal-through-spiritual renewal" angle the story was trying to push. But that need to push it instead of making it come naturally, makes the ending feels forced. In the end, the viewer is neither gifted with an uplifting ending nor does it make it clear that a renewal is happening to the audience. I may have understood it but the fact I had to explain it to the people watching it with me is the reason why the movie didn't take off as it deserved.SPOILERS AHEAD
For me, the movie had too much ghost-in-the-shell type of myth. This myth is about the difference between the soul and the physical body. The essence of what us alive is the soul. The body, no matter how physically perfect, does not function without the soul. Thus, growing another body may be physically possible (the final evolution in growing human organs), it is not alive as there is no soul within. Not everybody understands this
interesting premise but it is very prominent in Japanese fairy tales and manga.
Basically, the scientist gave each doll a part of his soul to bring them to life. While they are mechanical physically and thus can be repaired, once the soul is gone, all is left is a lifeless body. This was shown when the Machine sucked the soul of the dolls. One of the questions that popped in my head in the movie was whether the Machine need souls to run, thus the function of the battery. And when it killed everybody, did it lose it's source of power? That could explain the condition it was it in when we first saw it.
I was also intrigued at the underlying message in the dolls themselves. What did each doll mean? Were they unique aspects of the Scientist's soul? They were represented by what their characters were behaving. So what was the writer trying to say when he made beauty and strenght(7), youth, knowledge and curiosity (3 and 4) and humanity (9) survive?
Ultimately, the movie short of it's potential. It is unfortunate that the best I can think of the movie is that it is this generation's Final Fantasy: The Spritis Within
. That movie was a very anticipated movie that was supposed to bring computer animated movies to another level. The technology was great, the story was not. Much like 9, it also shared the ghost-in-the-machine myth.That movie did launch the CGI character technology into the stratosphere. The look it pioneered kept turning up in game cut-scenes and later in the games themselves. Computer animation movies with CGI characters owe some debt to it, either in technology or as an example of what not to do.
I am sorry 9 didn't take heed.
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