9

Review

Given the way humans have ravaged the planet, it’s hard to get worked up about yet another postapocalyptic fantasy in which it’s the machines that have exterminated mankind. But Shane Acker’s animated 9 certainly has the “Wow!” factor. It’s set amid what look like the ripped-out bowels of civilization. The hero (voiced by Elijah Wood) is a burlap sock puppet with a zipper up the middle and goggle eyes who refuses to accept the fatalistic warnings of another sock puppet (there are but nine) voiced by a sonorous Christopher Plummer. The predatory creatures owe something to the brothers Quay, but that’s a heck of a model—especially the scary spider with the baby-doll head. But for all the Saturday-matinee heroics, the movie is dreary and monotonous, the vision junky in more ways than one. — David Edelstein