“9” represents one of the few credible assaults on Pixar’s stranglehold on the animation industry. The animation is beautiful – lovingly imagined down to the smallest detail – nothing in this movie is just a background. If you’re a fan of the Burtonesque, you owe it to yourself to see how far down the field the technology has advanced.
Where “9” falls down is story. There’s a Shyamalan-style twist that, while you don’t exactly see it coming, doesn’t make the movie make any more sense when it arrives. There are a few characters that exist only to say infuriatingly predictable things, and the resolution is fairly baffling.
If you’re willing to just sit and let the visuals wash over you, it’s most certainly worth your while. If you your animated movie to be more than a beautifully inscrutable fairy tale, maybe this is one you could sit out.
I saw the preview for this and thought, “Wow, that’s really pretty. What a shame everything that comes out of the characters’ mouths is crap.” Mixed feelings to find that my takeaway was pretty consistent with yours.
thanks for being my first non-pharmaceutical comment