9 Reviews

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Top Critic
Jim Schembri
The Age (Australia)
December 9, 2009
Looking like a rag-doll version of Terminator Salvation, the film boasts an arresting visual style.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5
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Tom Huddlestone
Time Out
October 30, 2009
This film will surely be remembered as an intriguing failure: a triumph of ambition over ability, of ideas over emotional resonance - just another grim fairy tale for these troubled times.
Original Score: 2/5
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Wendy Ide
Times (UK)
October 30, 2009
It looks great, but sadly the screenplay - in particular the stultifying dialogue - simply can't match the visual inventiveness.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5
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Peter Bradshaw
Guardian
October 30, 2009
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.
Original Score: 1/5
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Matt Bochenski
Little White Lies
October 30, 2009
The story drifts towards the mawkish without answering any of the big questions it tentatively raises.
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Scott Von Doviak
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
September 11, 2009
There's no denying that Acker has a knack for bleak landscapes and an inventive salvage-yard approach to character design, but his narrative skills are less developed.
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Mary F. Pols
TIME Magazine
September 11, 2009
In movies, our technology is so often the ruin of us. We got that message from Stanley Kubrick way back when, and we get it now. But couldn't filmmakers let something else ruin us for a change? Even the apocalypse needs variety.
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Amy Nicholson
I.E. Weekly
September 11, 2009
The worst thing you can say about 9 is that it's the look, not the script, that keeps your interest.
Original Score: B-
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Dana Stevens
Slate
September 10, 2009
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...
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J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
September 10, 2009
[Its] splendid visuals are dragged down by a tedious story.
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Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
September 9, 2009
The expanded cast of creatures looks great, dressed and animated in the homespun style Acker calls ''stitchpunk.''
Full Review | Original Score: B+
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Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
September 9, 2009
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/4
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Peter Howell
Toronto Star
September 9, 2009
The post-apocalyptic adventure 9 adds up to everything except an obvious audience.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/4
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Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
September 9, 2009
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4
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Lou Lumenick
New York Post
September 9, 2009
It signals the arrival of Shane Acker as an audacious new talent to watch.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/4
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Tom Long
Detroit News
September 9, 2009
9 is a captivating film with much to say about the human spirit -- even if humans are nowhere to be found.
Original Score: B
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Tasha Robinson
AV Club
September 9, 2009
It's a perfectly functional, fairly scary kids' film, with plenty of craft and creativity to keep adults occupied. But with a story as sophisticated as its visuals, it could have been much more.
Original Score: B
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Keith Uhlich
Time Out
September 9, 2009
Save the voice work, which is celebrity-heavy and mostly undistinguished, 9 is a marvel to take in, especially the individual character designs.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5
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Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
September 8, 2009
Acker has created a fitful combination of beautiful, dreamlike images that never knit together forcefully enough to seem individual or convincing.
Top Critic
Scott Foundas
Village Voice
September 8, 2009
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.
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