9 PG 13
New to the genre of movies, a steam punk end of days fantasy blazes onto the screen in fantastic post cold war alternate reality , the day tripping dark '9'. Tim Burton and Shane Acker pull of this generation's 'Nightmare before Christmas'., a story of 9 animated dolls created to protect the future of humanity after a machine war destroyed everything. Not so much 'Terminator' as a nod to 50s scifi nuclear war flicks, 'Dr. Strangelove' and the 'Tripods' sagas, and oddly, 'Beast Machines' the 1999 animated series. (the robot spider like killer 'soul stealer' and the robot 'snake dragon' were right out of it, even stealing 'sparks' as both machines did, but here they're called 'souls'). Then again, BM was borrowing from 50s scifi stuff too. War of the Worlds, the aftermath. Needless to say, imitation here works as its own thing and it wasn't a cheat to know a lot of the ideas that likely were the inspiration here. This is fresh and new. Steam punk does describe it as would any number of dark Russian plays. The premise is simple enough, young 9 awakens after his creator has died and goes out in search of others like him in a devastated world, only to find redemption through his brothers and sister, and his clueless leader, 1. Wood is just sport on. He was born to play a puppet. Great to hear from Connolly again, even as a puppet. Think Pinocchio after the fall of man. Ha. The best animated movie to deal with loss and redemption since Up. 2009 has two great ones. The score is also awesome. Update. It was 2009, a tough year. In hindsight this movie gets a very good rating. It's not great.
Review by Adam Browne
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