9: Critic Reviews

The expanded cast of creatures looks great, dressed and animated in the homespun style Acker calls ''stitchpunk.''

Every effort to expand the range of feature-length animation beyond the confines of cautious family fare is to be welcomed, and budding techno and fantasy geeks are likely to be intrigued and enthralled.

It allegedly lasts 79 minutes. I think it lasted 79 hours, or 79 years, or perhaps 79 times the space of time between the extinction of allosaurus and the rise of Cro-Magnon.

It's too bad the thin story didn't match the stylishly haunting visuals.

What I loved about 9 is how much evident care its makers have put into it.

The result is never as gripping in narrative terms -- a well-worn litany of dystopian-future chestnuts -- as it is visually, but Acker keeps things moving briskly for the movie's 70-odd minutes.

What's lost in Acker's showdown between diminutive ragdolls and a soul-eating, scarlet-eyed spider-machine is any hint of grandeur, the overarching sense of something of inestimable value at risk.

For all the Saturday-matinee heroics, the movie is dreary and monotonous, the vision junky in more ways than one.

Here's the strangest thing of all: it works.

It might have been an opportunity for the sort of challenging speculation sci-fi is best at, however, and the best reason to see it is simply because of the creativity of its visuals.

I admire Acker's craftsmanship to the same degree I'm frustrated by what's missing or overstressed here, amid all the rough-textured details and the grim machine-ruled aesthetic.

[Its] splendid visuals are dragged down by a tedious story.

Acker, whose gifts for mood, design, and character design are impressive enough to have attracted Tim Burton as a producer, is more of an artist than a storyteller.

Exquisite visuals aside, 9 plays like a sock monkey version of Doom.

9 is a captivating film with much to say about the human spirit -- even if humans are nowhere to be found.

It's too scary for small kids and, frankly, too dreary for everyone else. The most intriguing question it asks is what Acker will do next.

One wonders, in fact, if 9 should have stuck with its original short format.

In the end, the picture's impact derives mostly from its design and assured execution.

It signals the arrival of Shane Acker as an audacious new talent to watch.

A perfect example of a thin idea stuffed and stuffed with filler until it loses much of its charm.

The post-apocalyptic adventure 9 adds up to everything except an obvious audience.

It would be a shame if the most exciting and thoughtful CGI action movie of the year didn't find an audience because the film's heroes fail to pass the suspiciously high superhero-fitness test.

Acker has created a fitful combination of beautiful, dreamlike images that never knit together forcefully enough to seem individual or convincing.

It's easy to see why Acker's gifts caught the attention of these directors; he's a visual craftsman of no little promise. Now if he can just stitch together a story with the same loving care that went into creating those digital burlap dolls...

Comparing this to the summer's biggest, most bloated movie about malevolent robots, 9 is about twice as enjoyable with half the length.