by Michael Jiadski

Created on: October 06, 2009   Last Updated: October 07, 2009

Warning: Spoilers are Afoot!

I wanted to love 9. I really did. The brilliant art direction, the cautionary and compelling apocalyptic backstory, and the pedigree of an award-winning short (see "Shane Acker's '9' Short Film") all pointed to a work of genius in the making. Alas, the execution was lacking Acker's finesse and subtlety, making the flick kind of mediocre.

The film starts with 9 - the titular character - waking up just after the extinction of the last human being. As he begins exploring, he meets 2, another like himself. Collectively, the style of the characters is called "stickpunk" by the design team, though that's not relevant to the story. Just some trivia. Anyway, 9 and 2 then encounter a robotic monster, obviously the design of something evil, which takes 2. From there, 9 starts on a rescue mission, inadvertently touches off an explosion of evil robot construction, leads his fellow stickpunks to glory, and finds the story of his own creation.

That story involves the end of human life at the claws of an intelligent machine controlled by a warmongering chancellor. The inventor of that evil machine created the little rag doll heroes to carry on the human spirit, attempting to redeem himself for unleashing such an evil on the world. Basically, it's exactly what would happen if a technical virtuoso was forced to invent by politicians or military men; human life would end up history after several rounds of intense nerve-gassing. This is exactly the kind of story that I love. It's plausible, dark, cautionary... A stern warning of things to come if we don't reconsider the pursuit of intelligent machines. In a pleasant change, this film even ends on a positive note - the surviving characters start life anew, hopefully without the evil that plagued humankind from the beginning.

Unfortunately, it wasn't done in a way that I could strongly appreciate. My fiance showed me 9, the short, before we went to see the feature, and I was a little lost. I got the gist of it, but Acker's message didn't quite sink in for me. Then, during the feature, I realized that, to fill the 90 minute script, writer Pamela Pettler needed to explain a lot more. As in, too much more. The story of the extinction was pretty clear to me by the halfway mark, but near the end, the movie follows a historical film strip hologram kind of deal that explains everything in detail. Personally, I would have preferred if the story were left vague, or at least if I was given the chance to figure it out for myself. Leave some things out; audiences are smarter than some filmmakers give them credit for. It's more satisfying to see a great movie and extrapolate the backstory yourself, if you ask me.

That said, it's still worth seeing if just for the design. The stickpunks would be hot collectibles if anyone was making them, even though the movie didn't get much press; their look is just that good. And in some of the action packed scene, where 9 is yelling "7!" and 7 is yelling "3!", it's like listening to an intense math problem. Despite my criticisms of it, 9 still has me excited to see what Shane Acker will do with some more feature-length filmmaking experience.

Learn more about this author, Michael Jiadski.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.