Bangkok 09: 9

Posted on Tuesday September 29, 2009, 15:21 by Sam Toy in Under The Radar

I’d been looking forward to seeing Shane Acker’s 9 since the mysterious, dialogue free teaser arrived online early this year. For some reason the UK wasn't deemed worthy of being a part of the US' 09.09.09 promotional campaign, so we've still got a few weeks before it hits our screens, so this was a nice surprise inclusion to the BFF's sister festival, the Bangkok Animation Festival, which runs over the same week.

I’ll admit I’d never heard of Acker, but seeing that dank, post apocalyptic, vaguely steampunk imagery, and knowing that he was in the hands of visionaries like Burton and Bekmambetov (they should form a company under that name) was an easy sell. Also, when i looked him up, I learned that Acker was hired by Weta digital (another good sign) to work on Return Of The King.

9 is adapted and expanded from Acker’s own short – again, which I’ve not yet seen (but will be looking forward to, hopefully as a Blu-ray extra) – although the director has soaked up a lot since his time working on Tolkien. It looks every bit as gorgeous as the trailer would lead you to believe. The creatures themselves are simple – hessian ragdolls with simple, Wall.E-like lenses for eyes (Acker must have been cursing Pixar when that came out), but these little critters are very much alive, and highly adaptive, using the remnants of a now humanless world with great ingenuity and skill.

And what a world they have inherited – mostly rubble, ruins and acrid, gloomy skies, but at least they’ve never really known any different. Their existence is integral to the plot, and things move quickly, so without spoilers, there’s a short prologue before 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood) comes to life, unsure of who or where he is, and venturing out into the world. He soon bumps into one of his kind - the curious, scientific 2 (Martin Landau) – before something very dangerous, yet cool-looking, appears...

Acker’s (and that of screenwriter Pamela Pettler) influences are writ large – a generous helping of the aforementioned Tolkien, a slosh of Orwell, a few dashes of Lovecraft & Verne, all stewed together under the visual overtones of Gilliam (especially the future-flashes of Twelve Monkeys), and Pink Floyd: The Wall’s artist Gerald Scarfe, among others.

After a while though, you can feel the weight of the story's ideas giving way to the action set pieces. And it’s not like 9 feels as though those ideas were never considered; more like the budget wouldn’t stretch to the 2+ hour movie it could have been if its meaning of life subject had been more fully explored. As it stands though, the story rockets along – as I say, a little too quickly for my liking, but perhaps it’ll stop kids getting antsy, and at the end of the day this is a film for kids, just one slightly darker than we’ve seen in recent years. Think along the dramatic weight of The Dark Crystal, and you’re pretty much there.

Only at the end does disappointment really start to set in, with a groaning-inducingly twee ending that doesn’t ring true to the film’s set up/internl logic. It’s a pity, but fortunately it doesn’t undo the loads of dazzling, exciting work that has been come before. And I’ll give you ten seconds to pick who's behind the score (although they’re not credited as ‘composer’). No peeking!