Media Monday - 9, not a bad movie...even with dolls

What Now?

I am a sci fi geek. If it's in this genre you can bet I will watch it, and most likely enjoy it. When I saw the trailer for Tim Burton's "9" I thought I had found the exception. It looked more like a Saturday morning cartoon on some teeny bopper cable channel than a movie that I would enjoy. But, it went on the Netflix queue, somewhere near the button of the list, with little hope of making it to the mail slot.

Sometime I forget about the queue and am surprised when a movie comes that I was not expecting. And if it's a movie I'm not thrilled about to begin with there is a good chance it's opened, put back, re-sealed and put in the send slot. I decided to give this movie a try instead, and what I saw was not too bad at all, not great, but not bad.

The premise is the old "man vs. machine" storyline but it takes place after machines have won. What is left from man are these robot dolls, each with their own personality and feelings. The movie opens with the main robodoll, 9, trying to figure out what he is, where he is, and what else is around him. What he finds is a tribe of robodolls all hiding away from the last remaining machines, trying to survive, but not much else. 9 challenges their belief system when one of their own gets taken alive by one of the machines. He recruits some others to help him save their stolen friend, and in the process they learn a great deal about themselves and each other. When the "master" machine is awaken to cause more chaos, this band of friends join together to stop it, and save themselves in the process. It's not really until the end of the movie that their purpose on earth is reveled to the movie watcher, and because of that you could find yourself wondering what the hell this movie is all about anyway.

There are some nice action scenes and the story is pretty well told, but if you are on the fence when it comes to science fiction movies this won't do much for ya. It's not my favorite Tim Burton movie, but I would give it a 2.75 out of 5 whatnows....not good enough for a full 3, but better than average.

That's all I got, take care and peace out!