I saw the movie 9 on Saturday night, after being sufficiently excited for it by the trailer. As the title of this post reveals, I left the movie with a richer understanding of its 56% on RottenTomatoes. The animation and action sequences were great; in fact, the movie was oozing with potential. Unfortunately, thanks to some horrible writing, what was teased as being “a new era in animated storytelling” unfolded more like a rejected screenplay for Madagascar 3. Potential spoilers follow.It happens all of the time in TV shows and movies, but I really can’t stand it when writers make certain elements seem to be connected or have a special significance, and then don’t follow through. The fact that there are nine creatures should mean something, right? Nope, they don’t. How about how 9 is the only one with a zipper, seemingly implying that he is the one meant to carry something? Meaningless. The whole time I was thinking that maybe these guys had a mission to help restore humanity, seeing as they were each born of a piece of their creator, but no, their very existence had no additional significance. Halfway through they figure out that their “dead” companions are “trapped” inside the Big Evil Robot Brain Thing, which means they can’t kill it until they get them out. Yet when they finally release them the only thing that happens is their souls ascend to heaven. So they pretty much were dead after all, and they could have killed the Evil Thing when they first had the chance with no consequence.
After watching this I’m further convinced that the majority of Hollywood “writers” aren’t there because they have any particular semblance of talent, but due some series of unfortunate accidents that places them in a position to mutilate otherwise healthy media. Clearly my “nine” movie should have been of the district variety.
Was it good for you, too?
See I knew to avoid this one. I’ve personally never ever been interested in any of Tim Burton’s movies, except maybe Batman. He just doesn’t do anything for me, and 9 looked to be even worse than Corpse Bride, which I got dragged to see.
See, I enjoyed Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd (although the latter is not animated) and the trailer for this movie seemed excellent. 9 was originally a short film and I think it’s easy to see how something similar was an award-winner in that form.
I think this is an example of people being impressed with the original work and throwing money at it for it to be expanded into a feature-length film, even going as far as to supply a “professional” writer for the screenplay. Experience tells us that oftentimes these people are professional merely in the sense that they get paid for their work.
I too saw 9 and I agree with what you’re saying. Overall I give it a passing grade, but shitty writing all around. And they used a Coheed & Cambria song in the trailer, got me really pumped, and then no Coheed song in the actual movie. Plus that was a terrible ending. The dead dudes’ souls ascend to heaven and then the four of them stand then with nothing to do.
THEY DON’T HAVE GENITALIA.
THEY CAN NOT PROCREATE.
ONCE THEY DIE THE EARTH WILL BE BARREN LIKE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN HAD THEY DIED EARLIER. WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE 9 AT ALL???
District 9 was good though. (500) Days of Summer was amazing.
Also, PLOTHOLE: the robot was built and then it went crazy. Then the doctor made that soul sucking amulet thing and made the 9. For some reason the robot needed the soul sucking thing to work, there was even a perfectly shaped slot for the soul sucking amulet to go in. HOW THE FUCK DID THE ROBOT WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE IF THE MAGIC AMULET HADN’T EVEN BEEN BUILT YET???
I’m sorry I got so heated about the movie.
While we’re on this…
In the video the scientist left for 9, he said that the problem with the giant robot thing was that it had no soul, and thus was easily corrupted. He split his soul into nine pieces, so together they make one soul. The giant robot thing starts sucking them in one by one, and 6 says, “they’re inside!” So maybe if ALL NINE go into the robot, they’ll provide the “soul” it needs to be good again, and it can populate the earth with good machines instead. But no.
OR, at the very beginning when 9 is unzipped, he has a slot inside him for the amulet thing, which he stupidly doesn’t notice. That suggests its his job to carry the amulet. Later, when he figures out how to use it, and manages to extract the souls from Evil Robot, this means he
1. Has the amulet, so he could find the old bodies of the “dead” ones and put the souls back into them.
2. Between all nine of them, they have one good soul, so if they all get together and use the amulet, they could “procreate” by building new bodies and putting souls into them. Thus repopulating the earth not with humans (impossible because they’re all dead) but with automaton-replicas of humans with human souls (a fascinating concept and ending). But no.
FAIL FAIL FAIL.