9

In an age where 3-D animation has almost entirely replaced 2-D animation, and where the recent purchase of Marvel by Disney has led to rumblings of a Pixar animated Avengers film, we’ve come to wonder if a good animated movie can be made that’s not for kids. Now, some of the more hyperbolic critics out there will claim that Wall-E or Up fit this mold, but they’re wrong. As good as those films may be, they’re kids’ movies that adults can also enjoy. 9 is the first major 3-D animated release to be PG-13, and therefore the first non-kid one in my book.

9 tells the story of 9 little rag doll things that are the last remnant of life on the planet after machines have destroyed everything else. In the flashback sequences, we see giant armies of machines going around killing folks (something this movie did better than Terminator Salvation), and yet there’s only a few robots moving around during the actual course of the movie. Where they all went, I have no idea, which you’ll see is a big theme for me. The plot of the movie is a good mix of simplistically straight forward and head scratchingly stupid, or as I like to call it, Quantum of Solace syndrome. The entire movie, you’re never really sure exactly what’s happening, and then we’ve got a pretty good grip on the situation, you realize that it’s just dumb.

The biggest problem 9 has is that it really doesn’t know what it wants to be. It is stuck in a tonal limbo, unsure of whether it wants to appeal to kids or be a balls-out, dark, adult film. The solution was to have some dark images, with lighter music behind it, so you don’t really know what to feel. It’s really too dark and not funny to appeal to the really young ones, and it’s certainly not adult enough to appeal to general audiences. I will be though that tweens think it’s awesome.

One of the things also boasted by the crack marketing team was a big cast of voice actors. I should have realized this probably wasn’t a good thing since the great animated films don’t have big Hollywood casts, and movies like Ice Agedo. It’s much better to have great voice actors than people who are good screen actors. There was such a disconnect between the voices and the movie it was unbelievable. There was no flow or connection with the dialogue. Pretty much every line was said in a vacuum. At no point did I ever feel like these characters were actually interacting. It was rather that it was a group of actors getting an easy paycheck sitting in a sound booth doing two takes of their lines and leaving.

One thing that the movie did get right was the visual style. I’d certainly go see another Shane Acker directed film based off the way the movie looked. As the film progresses, we see more and more different creature designs, and they get better each time. The cobra-baby doll thing was kinda awesome and the brain robot was expertly designed and animated. The thing is though, I’m not some 12 year old kid who thinks he’s cool because I’m hanging at the theater without a parent there. I need more than just cool (okay, very cool) visuals to make the movie good.

At the end of the day, I’m really not sure if we can say that 9 is the first animated movie to cross that line between adult and kids’ film. That was certainly the intention, but the result is not that. While they certainly didn’t make a kids film, they didn’t make an adult one either. All I know is that if this is the future of PG-13 3-D animation, I’ll say thanks, but no thanks. I’ll be over in the next theater over surrounded by little kids and parents.