9
Focus Features | Release Date: September 9, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
14
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Any optimism in 9, which is bound to try the fortitude of meeker children, feels hard-won. It actually ends in a bittersweet mystery. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Storyboarded with precision, and enhanced with a resonant score by Deborah Lurie, Acker’s handsome, feature-length 9 is, for all its visual flights of fancy, grounded in an apocalypse-proof message graspable by any schoolchild. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
At barely an-hour-and-a-quarter in length, it's one of those very rare feature films that you wish were longer. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This is post-apocalyptic adventure as imagined for a teen crowd, and what it lacks in depth it makes up for in action. With a slight running time of 80 minutes, 9 doesn't contain an ounce of fat on its animated bones. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Not a perfect 10, but its imperfection is what makes it gripping and bewitching. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
IF you ask me, Shane Acker's post-apocalyp tic animated film 9 is better than the live-ac tion flick "District 9." Beyond their similar titles, these sci-fi social commentaries are both expanded from shorts under the sponsorship of a world-class director. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Hartlaub
Taking your very small child to this movie is only a slightly better idea than a trip to "The Final Destination." With that warning out of the way, this action adventure is a big treat for more mature animation and science-fiction fans and a triumph for the young director. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
Watching 9 , we know how 8 feels. Sci-fi fans will find heaven in Shane Acker's feature-film debut. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubTasha Robinson
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. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The best reason to see it is simply because of the creativity of its visuals. They're entrancing. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Every effort to expand the range of feature-length animation beyond the confines of cautious family fare is to be welcomed, and budding techno and fantasy geeks are likely to be intrigued and enthralled. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
And here's the strangest thing of all: it works. [September 14, 2009, pg.ll4]
63
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
The film isn't particularly original, but its dark mood, end-of-times landscape and unique characters will seem fresher to the young audience for which it's aiming than to jaded sci-fi veterans. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
In 50 years, film lovers will look back on 9 as the debut feature of an original talent. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Something has gone slightly awry, however, en route from the 11-minute film to the 79-minute edition of 9. Read full review
63
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
9, though animated, isn't really a movie for kids. The problem is that, despite its strikingly original set-up and its cool steampunk visual vibe, it's not much of a movie for grown-ups, either. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter Travers
I only wish this richly imaginative movie had stayed truer to the dark heart of its visuals. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Design aspects are arresting and the filmmaker's abilities are obvious, but the basic survival story remains slight, just as the general setting, no matter how artfully imagined, is by now pretty familiar. Read full review
60
Village VoiceScott Foundas
The result is never as gripping in narrative terms--a well-worn litany of dystopian-future chestnuts--as it is visually. Read full review
60
Time OutKeith Uhlich
Sobering stuff for an animated movie that pitches itself somewhere between cutesy children’s entertainment and hectoring Grimm’s fairy tale. The problem with 9, though, is that it lacks a consistent tone. Read full review
60
Washington PostMichael Cavna
Does 9 rival last year's "Wall E" as the best post-apocalyptic "cartoon"? The short answer is Nein. 9 is, however, a visual stunner. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Shane Acker's underwritten but beautifully animated debut is both an ode to technology and a warning against it. Perhaps unintentionally, the film itself echoes those themes. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
9 never adds up to much. It's a dark adult film that gives itself over to the chases and frights of a kiddie movie. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin Wilson
Although it has a great look and offers a few thrills, the animated film 9 is one of this year's biggest disappointments. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Long on imaginative design but less substantial in narrative, this dreary story of fighting the power is more numbing than thought-provoking. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Shane Acker has expanded his Oscar-nominated short 9 into a full-length feature whose splendid visuals are dragged down by a tedious story. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Actually, the problem with wunderkind director Shane Acker's "stitchpunk" animated fantasy 9 isn't so much that it bears a sped-up, dumbed-down resemblance to "The Lord of the Rings," although it does. It's more that Acker's dark and whimsical creation, so clearly in the tradition of his mentor Tim Burton, is wondrous to behold but offers only an indifferent and generic mishmash of quest fantasy and post-apocalyptic science fiction when it comes to story. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
This expanded version only suffers, albeit in grim visual splendor, from the extrapolation. Read full review
50
SlateDana Stevens
Danny Elfman's swooping orchestral soundtrack only adds to the sense of by-the-numbers familiarity. Elfman's signature sound is so associated with Tim Burton movies that it overwhelms this film's chances of carving out an aesthetic space of its own. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
For all the Saturday-matinee heroics, the movie is dreary and monotonous, the vision junky in more ways than one. Read full review
40
Film ThreatNick Antosca
The nine characters aren’t machines, exactly, but they aren’t people or animals either. They’re little cloth pouches that can move, communicate, and make facial expressions that range from ornery to cute. At some point during the movie I began mentally referring to them as the Owlish Beanbags. Read full review
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