The ever-fresh Wood is ideal for the voice of his role, but so is the warm and forthright Martin Landau as the tottering No. 2, who carries a candle on his head and is a self-taught doctor and tinkerer. John C. Reilly reminds us of how great he is at being good as No. 9's bighearted sidekick, the one-eyed No. 5. Christopher Plummer imbues the self-appointed leader, No. 1, with baleful resignation. Best of all is Jennifer Connelly as the swashbuckling No. 7, the band's swooping woman warrior. Enacting a character who rushes into action in a feathered skull mask, Connelly unleashes a cheerful bravado unlike anything she's done in live-action movies.
No. 7 is a merry woman fit for Robin Hood. The rest of the figures and images in "9" suit the London of H.G. Wells or Arthur Conan Doyle. This "steampunk" environment is both apt and striking.
"9" has been said to take place years from now simply because it is a post-apocalyptic fantasy. But Acker sets the key action in an alternate-universe version of the 1920s and 1930s. That's when the various awful "isms" of the 20th century created totalitarian governments that reduced nation-states to destructive machines. Against the hollowness of machines, Acker sets the soulfulness of dolls. Improbably, and spectacularly, he makes their quest for life a heroes' journey.
