Brilliance by numbers

Movie Review

9
DIRECTED BY: Shane Acker
VOICES: Elijah Wood,
John C Reilly, Martin
Landau, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connolly
CERT: 12A

9 is director Shane Acker’s adaptation of his own 2005 animated short, a dark and delightful little tale for which he was nominated for an Oscar. It’s no exaggeration to say that his expanded version is a visual masterpiece, but somewhere along the transition from 10-minute gem to full-length feature, the story – much like its tiny heroes – has lost a big chunk of its soul.
One of the distinctive features of the short was that no-one spoke a word. But with so many poor writers out there waiting to conjure heavy-handed back story and spell out every plot development and so many expensive actors queuing up to lend their fine voices to terrible dialogue, it was simply ridiculous to even consider letting the audience use their imagination for as long as 80 minutes.
And so here we are with 9 (Elijah Wood), a wide-eyed rag doll that wakes to a world destroyed by war. A post-apocalyptic wasteland where machines have taken over and are very inhospitable to little fellows like him.
And there are several. He first encounters 2 (Landau), but the poor chap doesn’t really shed much light on this strange new world, mostly on account of being instantly carted off by a big mechanical beast.
But 9 soon hooks up with more of his funny-looking kind, a little group including 1 (Christopher Plummer), 5 (Reilly), 6 (Glover) and the fiery 7 (Connolly). Wise leader 1 is not so keen that any of the bunch go do something dumb like trying to rescue 2. But his wisdom is wasted on the would-be heroes and so 9 and his new buddies head off to save the day.
Instead, they end up rousing the evil Machine from its sleep and unless the gradually dwindling gang can figure out how to kill the fearsome thing, then all of their souls are doomed.
This is dark stuff – Disney it ain’t and I don’t think Pixar (the butt of an excellent gag here) will be indulging in the indiscriminate killing of cute, lovable creatures any time soon, either. Acker calls his ragdoll creations stitchpunks – but they’re not the kind of punks even Dirty Harry would take pleasure in ripping to pieces.
Visually the film is spectacular, probably the finest – and certainly the grimmest – mainstream animated work we’ve seen. And Acker does at times succeed in creating a palpable sense of dread. All round, it’s not the kind of world you’ll see often in animation – at least not outside the twisted universe of Tim Burton, who lends his services here as producer.
But Acker and his screenwriter Pamela Pettler are clearly at a loss as to how to stretch his original story. The plot is threadbare, the dialogue is unbearable at times and saddled with that kind of burden, even a cast this talented struggles to rise to the occasion.
The result is what you might call a deeply flawed work of genius. It looks wonderful, but it falls far short of what its creator was clearly aiming for – Terminator: I’ll Be Back For Your Dolls.

This Is It
DIRECTED BY: Kenny
Ortega
STARRING: Michael
Jackson
CERT: PG

Well, this is it. And it isn’t anything particularly special by the great man’s own stratospheric standards. But given the circumstances, it’s fascinating to watch. At least for a while.
And of course, essential viewing for the fans. (That would be those of us who got Thriller for Christmas when we were 14, to play in our new Walkman.)
What’s here is the assembled footage of Jackson’s rehearsals for the 50 shows he had planned for London’s O2 Arena, along with some obligatory praise and worship from his dancers and crew.
The motives behind this two-hour documentary are probably questionable but that’s neither here nor there. It’s put together nicely and leaving aside the obvious morbid curiosity and the fact that the Michael Jackson here is a mere shadow of the performer he was, there’s some pleasure to be had watching him run through some of the finest songs in pop history.
Though if you want to remember the real thing, there’s always Beat It and Billie Jean on YouTube.