More Like A Six

9

Shane Acker’s “9” starts off abruptly, as you are quickly thrown into a world where humanity has seemingly been  destroyed by machines.

Now it’s not another “Terminator-” it’s animated.

No, it’s nothing like “Wall-E” either.

Gritty and dark, yet visually stunning, this film had the potential to be just as memorable as the aforementioned classics. However, thanks to characters that are emotionless and an extremely short running time, “9” fails to live up to expectations.

With voices provided by Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly, Fred Tatasciore and Elijah Wood, “9” has the star power to thrive, but thanks to a flat script, you end up not falling for any of these characters. Sure, Connelly’s character is cool and can fight, making for several cool battle scenes, but her motives aren’t fleshed out nearly as much as you would like. The same thing goes for Wood’s character that seems to want to save the world as soon as he’s created.

Pretty lofty goals for something that has no idea where it is and what its place in the world is.

More backstory to flesh out these characters, especially 9 himself, could have made this movie something truly special. The way it stands, “9” just bounces around from battle to battle that we don’t know that much about, making it aggravating to sit through if you’re an adult and like a king-size “Hershey” bar if you’re a kid.

Some will say that there are meanings behind all of this mystique, possibly biblical and philosophical and while that can easily be the case, the film’s 79-minute length robs the viewer of any chance to truly put the pieces together in one sitting. Feeling more like an amazing pilot for a new animated sitcom, “9” delivers, but not in a way to induce any real thrills on the big screen.

After watching the film, you’ll want to know so much more about the characters and the world they live in, but it’s all for naught.

One reason why you’ll still find “9” enjoyable however is the animation. Action-packed, full of detail and intrigue, this is a beautiful film that draws you into its world- hook, line and sinker. Seeing how smart the characters are and how they are able to create weapons and other machines to aid them in their battles is an interesting twist and something that shows the film isn’t a rip off of anything else out there.

This is even more evident during the scene with Judy Garland playing while our heroes are enjoying a victory, which is a treasure to behold, giving the film a feel similar to the video game, “Fallout 3.”

Sure, the world has been destroyed and is in rubble, but show-tunes always find a way to live on.

Unfortunately, in spite of the amazing animation and unique premise, there is no rainbow present here and after the film, you may want to wonder why you couldn’t be somewhere where there was one.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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