Trailer Tuesday: 9

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2009 is shaping up as a very tough year as far as competition for the Academy Award for Best Animated Film is concerned. We've already had Coraline and Monsters Vs Aliens, the States has had Up (SA gets it this Friday FINALLY), Disney's oldschool hand drawn The Princess and the Frog comes out for December and now there's a little potential sleeper hit that has appeared out of nowhere, called 9.

In a bizarre similarity to that other "9" movie out this year, District 9, 9 is also based on an earlier short film from the same director - in this case Shane Acker, whose 2005 11-minute effort earned him an Oscar nomination.

Like District 9, 9 also comes with the backing of some big directorial names. While Peter Jackson sat in the producer's chair for District 9, here we have Tim (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands) Burton and Timur (Wanted, Night Watch) Bekmambetov overseeing proceedings.


Anyway, done in a CGI-animation style that mimics stop-motion, 9 is a sci-fi action fantasy that takes place in a post-Apocalyptic world parallel to our own. A group of sentient rag dolls, known as the stitchpunks, have been created by a human scientist in one final attempt to preserve humanity's squandered gifts. The newest addition to the stitchpunks is 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood), who has the determination, heart and leadership qualities to fight back against the machines that have ravaged the world.

Some of the other stitchpunks include:
1 (Christopher Plummer): a domineering war veteran
2 (Martin Landau): an aged inventor
5 (John C. Reilly): a stalwart mechanic
6 (Crispin Glover): a visionary and artist
7 (Jennifer Connelly): a brave warrior.

Watching the trailer, 9 seems to be - like Coraline earlier this year - highly unusual and intense enough that it's definitely not suitable for very young children. Given that a panel was held for the film at this year's San Diego Comic Con, 9 is apparently being aimed at older viewers and/or geeky types who have a greater appreciation of animation as a mature and powerful art form. Finally the audience that the likes of Titan AE and The Iron Giant were directed at, are coming around in larger numbers...

Pre-release critical consensus seems to be that 9 is visually magnificent and incredibly imaginative, but is denied overall brilliance by a dull, derivative plot. This said, I'm sure as a post-Apocalypse tale it's a helluva lot better than Terminator: Salvation.


9 opens this Wednesday in the United States (on 09-09-09 of course!) and in South Africa... God alone knows?! Bah, why must we always wait for animated films?

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