Directed by Shane Acker. Voices of Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, John C Reilly, Crispin Glover. 12A Cert, gen release, 79 min
IT MAY seem perverse to describe a film about the end of the world as lacking ambition, but, though nicely designed and often rather moving, this animated feature from young Shane Acker does seem like a small thing. It’s commendable, but easily forgotten.
Expanded from an Oscar- nominated short into a mid-budget feature (or perhaps, at just 79 minutes, a longer short), 9 begins with a burlap doll waking up amid a post-apocalyptic environment that looks a little like the aftermath of the Blitz. Apparently unsure of his own nature, the doll pads about the rubble and eventually encounters others like himself.
Details of the Earth's combustion gradually emerge. It seems that foolish humans entrusted their future to a massive semi-cognisant machine that – will we neverlearn? – eventually engineered a war against its creators. You know how these things go.
The little protagonist’s investigations unfold like those in a role-playing video game. He turns over this rock and learns a little about the origins of his species. He talks to that character and hears a little about the dangers still posed by rampaging robots.
The information is often diverting, but, as in a video game, it rarely arranges itself into anything you could call a story. There is a vast intricate prehistory, the characters’ personal mythology is complex, the moral issues discussed are significant, but the incidents on screen are disappointingly repetitive and disconnected.
Still, there is something engaging about Acker's vision. Using computers to fake the look of old-school European animation (the heroes could have been hewn from the pelts of dead Clangers) the film-makers have created a convincing alternate universe that bears comparison with those devastated in The Matrixand Mad Max.
Tim Burton and Wanted's Timur Bekmambetov, two of the producers, have done a good job of shepherding Acker into the big time. For their next project, they should, however, persuade him to worry less about the backstory and focus on what's actually happening on screen. There's great potential here.
