I had my time-killing afternoon movie for yesterday narrowed down to three options, when suddenly someone at the end of the table said, “Hey, do you wanna go see 9?” And other than a slightly more expensive ticket price, I had no compelling reason why not; after all, it’s a flick I’ve wanted to see, even if Tim Burton is kind of getting played out by virtue of basically every single one of them being about loneliness. I can deal with that in my music, but it starts to get old on the screen, eventually.

In the dawning years of World War II, war-attuned scientists have created self-replicating machines “for the defense of the nation”. And then… well, you know what happens next, don’t you? As sure as zombies commute on trains[1], the machines rise up against their masters. And as humanity declines, one scientist, perhaps seeing the way the wind is blowing, engages in a knit-punk experiment to create nine tiny homunculi in the slim hopes of carrying on life on the planet. So, that’s where the movie begins; as for the actual plot, it can best be summed up as “adventure and interpersonal[2] conflict ensue”.

It was a decent albeit flawed movie. I look at it like this: if you want to see a movie with incredible animation, as good as any I’ve ever seen, you should check this out. If you want to see actiony dramatics, you’re good. If you want to see the best use of Over the Rainbow as score, this is the place to be. If you want to see a thoughtful movie that makes coherent sense as a whole, well, you might should ought to look somewhere else. Also, if you are at all allergic to the really crunchy granola[3], you’ll have some problems.

[1] Dude, it rhymes. You expect more depth from zombies?
[2] Grpuavpnyyl, vagencrefbany, but that would be a spoiler. P.S. http://rot13.com
[3] Hippies, yo. Hippies. You know what I’m saying.