Replacements as Doomed as We Were

 9

Directed by Shane Acker

Three Stars

The post-apocalyptic world has become so standardized by the cinema that we need no longer question how it came to fruition.  Vegetation replaces traffic on the freeways.  Architecture begins to crumble.  With the drone of our voices finally gone, the intense stillness of the earth falls on deaf ears.  Of all the possible specifics, one thing can be assumed for sure – we destroyed ourselves.  This has happened.  We are gone.  Everything else is vanity.

Such begins Shane Acker’s “9”, an exciting and provocative doomsday fable that only reveals its ambitious scope in its waning moments.  It is among the darkest animated films I’ve seen.

“9” is named after the film’s protagonist (Elija Wood), an automated ragdoll who awakens in an abandoned workshop over what we assume to be the body of his creator.  The little fellow tries to speak but alas, he has no voice (a strange oversight on his creator’s part, considering later plot developments).  He finds on the floor a peculiar insignia, tucks it away, and ventures out into a decaying city where the cloud cover never breaks. 

Once outside, he meets a second little fellow like himself, ironically named 2.  At this point the film introduces both the beginning of a string of breathtaking action sequences and a sort of A.I. tinted “Lord of the Flies” allegory that Acker promptly shelves in favor of the first option.

9 and 2 are attacked by a robotic beast with a dog’s skull as its head (Labrador sized, which to them is enormous) that makes off with 2, who is barely alive.  From here, 9 meets up with 5, 6, and 8 (John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, and Fred Tatasciore), as well as their paranoid leader 1 (Christopher Plummer) who keeps the group of them sheltered and organized while they attempt to outlive the beast that prowls the streets.  9, certainly the most daring of the group, convinces the rest of them to set off on a rescue mission to save 2.  In so doing, they awaken the technology that may have been responsible for the end of mankind, and may also have inspired dolls’ creation.

“9” began as an Oscar nominated short film which Acker also directed.  Producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmanbetov put forth the money to expand the project into a full length motion picture (although the longer vision still only runs a modest 79 minutes).  Acker’s original short was completely dialog free, and it’s clear that the dialog of the expanded project was added at the service of marketability.  Sure, a silent movie wouldn’t sell, but aside from a key monologue late in the picture, there isn’t a single line of dialog that isn’t disposable.  I might have greatly appreciated the courage to tell this story without such expository babble.

Each of the dolls speaks only in hyper-condensed action movie clichés.  I actually caught myself quoting entire lines of dialog verbatim before the characters had even said them.  “Welcome back to the fight” the dolls tell 7 (Jennifer Connelly) when they find her at the beast’s lair.  “Back?” she asks defiantly in return, “I never left.”  Of course.

From here, spoilers abound.  Ye be warned.  I am resisting the urge to reveal the later developments in the story, but I feel I must share with you what I made of them.  See the film, as I think you should, and then return to me.

The most exciting idea that “9” presents to us in its final moments is that, when faced with oblivion, we might conceive of a being whose function was not to revitalize our own race, but to carry on in our stead.  It’s a fool’s errand, really, considering that the villainous master machine was the only remaining being with the capacity to reproduce. 

These little ragdolls were made to be the last of their kind, not the first.  They are the last breath of a species whose heart has long since stopped beating.  Were they created to put an end to an evil that has nothing left to destroy?  What would anything they do matter now that we’re gone?  What difference can they make except for themselves?  They have no hope of saving us, and no hope of replacing us.  So why were they created?  The answer, it seems, is surprisingly quaint -  Peace of mind.


Rollan Schott
September 14, 2009
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