"9" is not a perfect 10, but its imperfection is what makes it gripping and bewitching.
This post-apocalyptic cartoon fable is the rare piece of 3-D animation that feels handmade from cuffs to collar. Shane Acker, the writer-director, doesn't provide us with the riches of a born storyteller. But he just may be a born moviemaker. As a visual artist he sweeps you up in gimcrack panoramas that merge into a desolate beauty. This movie will make young-adult and older viewers alike gasp like toddlers amazed by their first pop-up book. Its imagery invades your eyes from every corner of the screen and swathes itself around your brain.
The film unfolds in a nightmare London of collapsed and dangerous factories and haunting spires. A ruined estate and a cathedral sanctuary are the last repositories of humane culture amid streets dominated by scissory, self-powered mechanical villains. The scariest may be a steely winged stingray.
What holds you, though, is the heartiness of the movie's diminutive protagonists. "9" centers on a group of nine raggedy dolls who can talk, think and move. They debate how to survive in a world where malevolent super-machines have eliminated all other organic life.
If that last sentence is a stopper, it's meant to be. In movies, sci/fantasy audiences have grown used to computerized devices that take on the worst human traits and eliminate their masters. But Nos. 1 through 9, a bunch of flawed stringless puppets, are not merely the robots' opposite numbers.
They're made partly from mechanical parts, as sophisticated as speaker systems and as simple as zippers. But from the moment you see human hands stitching No. 9 together out of burlap, what animates them - and gives them spirit - remains a tantalizing mystery.
No. 9 (Elijah Wood) is the perfect hero for this story. He comes to life long after the others and thus is as clueless as we are about a world that could make cowards out of anyone. And because he's new, he's not jaded or burdened with outmoded ideas. He's resolute about leaving no rag-dolls behind in battle - and about fighting for their immortal souls after death.
