9 (2009 animated film)

9 is a 2009 American computer-animated post-apocalyptic science fiction film, which was directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.

....

Prior to the events of the film, a scientist is ordered by his dictator to create a machine in the apparent name of progress. The Scientist uses his own intellect to create the B.R.A.I.N., a thinking robot. However, the dictator quickly seizes it and integrates it into the Fabrication Machine, an armature that can construct an army of war machines to destroy the dictator's enemies. Lacking a soul, the Fabrication Machine becomes corrupted and pursues one goal: to exterminate all life on Earth. The Fabrication Machine reprograms the other war machines to turn against humans by using toxic gas and chemical weapons. On the verge of destruction, the Scientist uses alchemy to create nine homunculus-like rag dolls known as "Stitchpunks" using portions of his own soul via a talisman, but dies upon finishing the last one.

Some time later the last doll, 9, awakens in the Scientist's workshop. Taking the talisman with him, 9 ventures out into the devastated city and meets 2, a frail inventor who gives him a voice box and is surprised when 9 reveals the talisman. The last surviving machine, the Cat-Beast, attacks the pair and kidnaps 2 and the talisman. 9 collapses, but awakens in Sanctuary, a cathedral that is home to the other dolls,...

There is much more, but perhaps that is enough to quote.

The film is a tour de force of computer animation.  Having watched the movie several times, though, I find that I cannot condone the story it tells.  The blurb for the movie on Xfinity characterizes Acker, the director of the movie, as a "mystic", and that may be accurate.   He is certainly not a scientist.   The opening monolog of the movie rails against the "blind pursuit of technology", which is probably a statement of Acker's own view.   The central reliance on a phenomenon based on a "talisman" and recalling Medieval magic and alchemy, and the climactic event of the deceased heroes literally arising from the dead and ascending into heaven rules out any interpretation of the film as "science fiction".

The major disappointment of the animation is that the "rag dolls" are just that.  They are very convincingly animated and given endearing  personalities,  but no actual means to move -- i.e. nothing to correspond to muscles -- and no means to control movement -- i.e. nothing to correspond to nerves.   They are literally skin and bones.

Overall the plot of the film is a tired rehash of Hollywood's done-to-death Frankenstein Cliche.   I.e. Hollywood seems incapable of portraying a computer or robot that does NOT turn on its creator and go on to destroy all of humankind that it can reach, and as much of the rest of life on Earth as it can.

[Science fiction author Isaac Asimov debunked and did away with the Frankenstein Cliche, but when Hollywood got around to producing its version of Asimov's I, Robot they betrayed his vision and stood it on its head, turning it into yet another Frankenstein story.]

Still, the "rag dolls" are wonderfully drawn and animated, and their adventures sufficiently exciting to keep me coming back to watch.   Despite its flaws, 9 is a wonderful movie.