9

We’ve all seen and heard of a hundred different movies that fit the mold of man versus machine and a resulting apocalypse that ravages and destroys the world as we know it, but leaves behind a few stragglers on either side. Unfortunately, 9 isn’t much different than your run of the mill apocalypse movie. In this world, nine burlap sack puppets built in the form of man, just like the ones you may all know about in the game Little Big Planet on the Playstation, awake to a world destroyed by first a war between humans with the help of their machines, and then a second war between the remaining humans and machines. Each of the little living burlap sack puppets is imbued with a soul and given a number based on their sequential creation. Number 1 is an old leader with outdated ideas on how to live, 2 is a tinkerer of sorts that loves asking questions, 3 and 4 are archivists that record as mush history and information as they can, 5 is always afraid of everything, 6 is a sort of artistic soothsayer, 7 is heroic and courageous, 8 is big and strong and serves as 1’s bodyguard, and finally there is 9 who seems to be the perfect culmination of all the other 8s’ traits and is also the most advanced in his crafting.

These nine small creatures are more or less divided amongst themselves into two sides. Side one is led by 1 who believes in always hiding and waiting for their enemy the machines to die out. This side houses numbers 1, 8, 6, 2, and 5. This is also the side that 9 meets first and dislikes their theories on how to live from square one. On the other side we have 3, 4, and 7 who fight for their day of salvation. 9 seems to like this side’s ideologies much better. All throughout the movie, all nine sack puppets are fighting amongst themselves and against the newly awakened leader of the machine army simply referred to as “The Machine”. Numbers 1 and 9 do not see eye to eye at all and have several conflicts as the leaders of the opposing sides, but team up when the chips are down to try and rid the world of the catastrophic power of The Machine forever. This is a rather sad movie seeing as how less than half of the heroes make it out alive.

Through this film’s few twists and turns, it doesn’t surprise the modern day movie-goer much, and so many audience members turned it down. Although the graphics and animation were fairly awesome, I am afraid that I would have to agree with the average modern day citizen- this is more of a B kind of a movie with a similar storyline to dozens of other futuristic movies about the aftermath of the end of the world. If you have some spare time some day and want something with a storyline that’s been done again and again but in a little different way this time through, give 9 a shot, but don’t worry about rushing to the video store any time soon just for it.