Adapted from Shane Acker’s own 2005 Oscar-nominated animated short, 9 is a weighty slab of CG sci fi that owes more to Alexander Reynolds than Pixar, bright colours and loveable characters replaced with grim, menacing situations and a serious lack of laughs. Indeed, it even seems dark for producer Tim Burton; stripped of the dry, moribund humour that characterised Batman and particularly Beetlejuce, this is very much Acker’s baby, and a very unhappy one at that.
