Wednesday, November 4, 2009

"9": Ragdolls & General Confusion

When "Star wars" first premiered on Memorial Day, 1977, it thrust fans into an unfamiliar galaxy, filled with unfamiliar vehicles and creatures, and unfamiliar planets inhabited by unfamiliar characters, all set to the backdrop of an unfamiliar war. People LOVED it.
"9" thrusts us into an unfamiliar reality, on our own planet, with our own technology and science...and the movie made no fucking sense.
So, long story hort, some asshole creates a bunch of war machines, the machines get too smart and turn on the humans (a la "The Terminator"). That part I can grasp. So, because all of this happened, a mad scientist transfers his soul into nine individual ragdolls with unique personality traits. That part, not so much. Why the hell would he need to do that? The cells we see forming at the end happened because of rain. The ragdolls didn't create the rain! They just ran around, spewing their despressing "our lives are difficult" babble, getting killed off by whatever the hell that machine-thing was, and then the ghost disappear into heaven and, in a perfect example of pathetic fallacy, it starts raining.
Woo.
So, what was the point? Did the scientist have any reason to create those ragdolls, other than to prove that he could pull off such a procedure in the first place? No. Sure, the ragdolls destroyed the machine, but by pure fluke. The scientists couldn't possibly have expected them to actually do it. Why was the monster eating ragdolls? Was that explained? No.
And if all the dolls were just bits of the scientist's soul, then why was one of them a woman? And why did another one of them fall in love with her? How the hell could a soul fall in love with itself?
I don't know, this movie was too fucking weird. I walked out of the theatre and spent the next two days trying to figure out what the hell it was I just watched. The animation looked great, but story-wise, it had all the appeal of an old shoe. People who were expecting the next "Nightmare Before Christmas" were definitely disappointed by this one.
I give it 2 Buttons out of 10.

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