At least it was creepy

After my interest was sufficiently piqued by previews I finally made some time last weekend to see 9. Wow. Just...just awful. A shred of storyline was stretched thin over an hour and a half choc' full of heavy handed, directionless symbolism. My girlfriend remarked that it might have been better as a short film, and after talking with some of my Arts and Technology friends I discovered that it originally was a short film with no dialogue. What could have posessed a studio to think that making the film 760% longer would improve the experience?

Honestly I think the studio was trying to grab a slightly older demographic with a 3D animated cartoon. The movie was advertised with lines similar to, "This is not your little brothers animated movie". The darker images and prevalence of death were meant to lure in the male tween audience (I assume).

Looking at the narrative of the movie I'm struck by how conflicted it all was. The burning church and miter could have been a crack at religion, but no alternative world view is proposed. Later the museum is attacked and THAT seems to say that Academia is unable to combat the faceless industrial evil. Some thing could be gleamed out of the movie about stagnation and the cycle of life, but its so muddled and clumsy that any potential message is lost.

At least the animation was cool. No amount of razzle-dazzle is going to make up for a complete lack of story. I'm suddenly worried that "Avatar" is going to be nothing but fantastic special effects with a typical message about government profits vs. respect for indigenous life.