Nine o’clock in the evening. 99th SMEx event. And we are about to see 9, the movie.

Apocalypses. Why are there so many movies about the end of the world and the entire humanity lately? And everybody tries to create their own, unique recipe of extinction: furious aliens, global cataclysms, revolted robots, crafty viruses and so on, and so on, and so on…

It was my first fully animated movie about apocalypses. Its creators, Tim Burton (The Corpse Bride, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory) and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Nightwatch), hadn’t really tried to be unique in their vision of the end of the world. Why bother, if you can simply take an old and checked recipe: humanity tried to ease its life with the help of smart machines, but those revolted and… well, you all know. And this time it was all fault of one scientist, who was able to put parts of his soul into machines, making them alive.

There are few moments in the movie, that bother me. For example, how can it be, that all the machines and the whole humanity are both extinct, no one has won, everyone’s dead, but the main evil machine is simply turned off? And the only key, that is able to launch it (hehe… and to destroy it as well) is at the professor’s office! Which looks to me, that he turned off the machine, created #9 and died, putting the key right next to 9, kind of giving him a gentle hint to launch the evil machine again!

Apart from that the movie is good. Even though the special effects are not overly impressive, but they were in line with the overall post-apocalyptic style of the picture. The models were finely designed. Each doll had its own unique temper and personality (even the twins were slightly different). It attaches you to each character the very first time you see it and makes you support every single one of them in their struggle for survival.

My conclusion is: definitely worth watching, but do not expect from the movie a lot.