9

I went to check out 9 yesterday. I went in with pretty high expectations. Story-wise, it left a lot to be desired, but visually it wasn't at all disappointing.

There was none of the ubiquitous blue sky/fluffy cloud look of most animated features. For that I was particularly grateful. (As I've said before, it's not that I haven't loved a lot of the animated features of the past few years -- I'm not carping on Pixar or Dreamworks. It's just awesome to see such a different style).



It was definitely within the steam-punk realm, though not so far as to be cliched. And there were a lot of very Tim Burton influenced elements.

You could see that there was a lot of real thought and detail put into the art direction. The character design was particularly interesting. The mechanical ragdolls were unique to begin with, but each character had a lot of detail. (2's headgear, 9's zipper, etc). The machines were really cool. And the post apocalyptic environment was, in my opinion, much more creative than the one in this summer's Terminator movie.

From a CG standpoint, it was good but not excellent. I was annoyed by the smeary UV on the characters (granted their textures were unforgiving, but still). The fire effects looked a little dated. And the matte paintings, which they used a lot of, tended to look really flat in composite.

None of this is any criticism of the artists of course. You do the best you can on a smaller budget. And if anything, I'd say that it makes an even better argument for the film's creative merit. It just goes to show that you don't necessarily need to spend big bucks for all the high-tech bells and whistles to create something that's visually stunning. The film might not have had the most technically cutting edge CG, but from an artistic or creative standpoint, it was top notch.

On the other hand, while I'm quick to forgive any technical imperfections in the 3D, I think it's a real shame that the story wasn't stronger. I say this because I think it could have been a really good film. They put so much imagination into creating this detailed world and cool looking characters. If they had told a better story, it could have really been something special.

Despite all that, I definitely recommend seeing it. It's a visual treat. And though the story is lacking, at least it makes sense. (Unlike some of the blockbusters I saw this summer). If you're like me, you'll enjoy the movie, and you'll walk away feeling inspired to push the creative envelope in your own work.