9

Running Time: An hour and a half

MPAA Rating: PG-13


What do you do after years of independent work on a heartfelt short film wins you prestigious awards and international popularity? Monetize it, of course! Exploit every cent out of your creation by adding an hour of explosions and unnecessary characters, cheesy one-liners for the kids, and slapping a famous director’s name on the final product. At least that seems to be the thought process of writer/director Shane Acker in his extended remake of the 2005 film.

The story follows a group of sentient ragdolls ("steampunks") surviving robot attacks in a post-apocalyptic alternate-universe world war 2-ish era. Film can be a helluva drug, people. After being given life by a man trying to encapsulate the spirit of the human race by dividing his soul into nine dolls, they avoid going on the stereotypical killing spree that seems to happen in every other “bring weird stuff to life using voodoo” film. Instead, they focus their efforts on trying to survive against the maniacal, mechanical beings that have already wiped out humanity.

The film's most egregious offense is that it feels like it was written by a Hot Topic focus group. Is it really possible to be a social outcast if every other living thing on the planet is as well? Leadership and military figures are demonized with a harsh emphasis on religion. The overbearing self-declared leader of the group dresses like a pope and operates from a church while apathetically dismissing attempts to save steampunk lives.

Most characters in the film show all the depth of a kiddie pool and only serve to move the plot along. The lack of real emotion conveyed by the puppets tends to cause indifference to the casualties of war. Parts that made the original "9" special are copied and pasted into this, but lose much of their impact because of the extra baggage.

9 falls short of it's potential by being a longer adaptation of the original, rather than an artistic expansion. It poses as a Tim Burton movie by following the trends that Burton created. To save your time and money, the wise choice here is to just watch the original.

Actual Rating: PG
Anybody who has seen a PG-13 rated movie this decade will understand that an unmarked body and mild, offscreen violence can hardly be considered traumatizing in comparison.