People are voting emotionally.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

A Disappointing Continuation

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

I was planning on watching the movie 9 recently until someone pointed out it was an expanded version of a short film that I'd not seen, which made me want to watch the short film in the extras and then leave it a while before watching the more recent version. I probably made the right call on that since the original was made on a much more limited budget to say the least and is much simpler and smaller – so seeing it after a full version may have worked against it. Anyway, what I found was a short film that does what a short film is meant to do – engage and deliver quickly.The plot is not really explained – or at least the background to the world and characters anyways. Instead we are thrown into the middle of it as one ragdoll character has its soul captured by some sort of mechanical creature; this leaves doll #9 to either survive it, kill it or die trying. The short is as simple as that and, in the absence of detail and plot to engage, it is all about atmosphere and feeling. These are almost harder than the visual aspect to create but Acker gets it right, producing a very dark feeling film that engages because of its Gothic feel and dark air. Visually the film works very well even if the limited resources do show. The animation is smooth, the creatures have character and presences with only the slightest touch and the wider world is interesting.Overall this was an enjoyable and dark short film that worked off atmosphere and visual creativity. I will be interested to see if an expansion and additions of characters, voices etc make it a better experience or if it dilutes the simple short too much across a longer running time.

Shane Acker's original film that was the basis of the now big budget animated film. Running some 10 minutes the film concerns 9's battle with a patchwork monster that has been stealing the souls of his brethren. Its silent except for sound effects and its clear why Tim Burton produced a feature film version since the film is full of possibilities. As it stands now its a tightly paced beautiful to look at film. Its the best sort of film in that its reality bleeds off the screen and you very easily believe this is a real place and really happening. Acker's animation is extremely masterful. Watch the little motions of 9's body as he moves. There are small touches, gestures, shifts of weight that demolish any notion that we are watching anything other than real being. A small masterpiece. See this if you can.

I saw this movie a couple of nights ago. They were showing all the academy award nominated short animations. This is probably one of my favorite styles of artwork, all grungy and cool and stuff. There's good storytelling involved too. It's basically about this little rag doll guy that tries to stop a monster that's destroying all of his kind. His name is 9. The animation is top quality. I only have a few critiques and it's that his movement stretched his texture a little more that the texture looked like it was meant to be. Also I think that the ground could have been a little better with added rocks and dirt clumps etc. The fact is, since those are the only flaws I can find, the movie must be pretty good. Except for my mildly critiquing eye (just because I'm into this stuff) I was completely absorbed in the movie. I love it and think anyone who's interested should watch it.

Great Visual Effects, stunning work!!! Shane is an inspiration to all short film makers.Brilliant Characters set in a visually fantastic backyard war zone. Dramatic lighting and gutting CGI environments create an astounding miniature world in trouble. Simple yet profound story telling without words, transcends past language barriers producing a universal story for all. With this film you can definitely see Shane's progress of his previous Good films to this breath taking achievement in short film making.A must see for any fan of animated shorts with stunning imagery.