“9” has many intriguing ideas and opinions about the role technology will play in the demise of our world but lacks the courage and focus to truly enhance the understanding of the terrifying consequences of these implications. It is ironic that a film that relies so desperately on the explosion of technology for its existence is so fervently against the process itself. This exudes a cognitive dissidence that the filmmakers possess which is increasingly annoying as the story progresses.
“9” begins extremely strong with its attractive visual style and fascinating story but quickly degenerates into a boring series of action scenes. The film never seizes from its continuous chase scenes to consider the questions it intelligently poses. “9” is against technology and for both curiosity and observation and yet it is clearly uninterested about dissecting the intellectually stimulating possibilities of its inquiries.
“9” could be implying that the problems of this world began before the blossoming of technology. The film could be saying that when Adam and Eve were born as male and female was where the competitiveness to increase the need for technology began and that these asexual creatures are the only ones who can save the world we attempted to destroy with our greed. The film’s most egregious flaw is that it fails to scratch the surface of these extraordinarily complicated subjects.
“9” is approximately as appropriate for children as the “Terminator” movies. If you want to punish your children by making them have horrific nightmares, this would be the perfect film to show. There is a large amount of violence but no blood because of the nature of the creatures being injured, but the images are often unnerving.
“9” tries unsuccessfully to be funny at inappropriate times, making the film fall flat on its face far too often. Individual humorous dialogue is both permissible and necessary but halting the entire story without warning for these occasions is not suitable for the subject matter. Tom Cruise never stopped for a night at the Apollo in “Minority Report” because it would have distracted from the flow of the narrative.
The ending is difficult to digest but is supposed to have biblical references that do not coincide with the remainder of the story. It is too sunny and romantic in a film that illustrates a picture of the future with neither of these qualities, making it blatantly out of place.
Although I tend to agree with its overall message, believing that technology is useless would require that telephones, televisions, and movie screens are completely unneeded would seem to be a form of historical arrogance that would be counterproductive. There are devices created that were meant to help but have harmed our existence, but to simply discard all of them as evil would be a massive waste of effort and time.
“9” is often visually striking and contains some sharp dialogue and an exciting storyline but has difficulty in meshing all of these positive elements together into a cohesive, absorbing narrative. The film wastes opportunities by bringing forward smart questions that become meaningless and impotent because of how it deals with them. Overall, “9” is not a bad film, but it is certainly not an accomplished one. It contains brief moments of brilliance surrounded by a surprising display of muddled incompetence and incoherence.