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.

Given Burton’s involvement and some heavyweight distribution, 9 will certainly play to filled cinemas initially, but it’s gloom may make it unsuitable for either younger children or the stripy-socked post-goths that usually lap up Burton’s output. Here the post-apocalyptic, and post-modern thematics will more readily appeal to fans of underground comics and hard sci-fi, with the original 11 minute tale of ragdolls battling a mechanical and metaphysical enemy thoroughly expanded and retconned to incorporate some intriguing and excellent Vancian bleakness.

Granting the previously mute dolls speech, and positioning them as the inheritors of an Earth ruined by humanity, The story plays out in a devastated, but identifiably European city lending a post-war gravity to proceedings that adds to the grimness.

9 himself is a Pinnochio proxy in a world where there are no ‘real boys’ to aspire to, only a dead Gepetto figure in the dusty, ruined apartment where he first awakens. Immediately attacked by a menacing, robotic canine, Martin Landau’s 2 comes to his rescue, only to sacrifice himself in the process; carried away to a menacing industrial site, one of the few structures left standing. 9 quickly finds others like himself – John C. Reilly’s Cyclopean 5 taking him to meet 1, the first of their kind. Cautious and wise, Christopher Plummer’s dusty tones mean 1 is a standout in an unfortunately underused ensemble task of great talent. Crispin Glover in particular gives real pathos to the demented 6, but like Elijah Wood’s emotive hero, he’s often given little to do and struggles to bring real empathy to the character despite impressive work when given the opportunity.

Ignoring 1’s wishes, the dolls set out to rescue 2, encountering Jennifer Connelly’s spirited 7 along the way, and accidentally alerting the mechanical, soul sucking villain to their existence.

While slightly thin on characterisation, the film is never the less highly engaging, with some beautiful and singular CGI work bringing to life a world both gritty and genuinely dangerous, while the running time is wisely kept short enough to excuse this lack of emotional resonance, the film setting itself up instead as a cautionary parable, our Stichpunk hero’s cyphers for various aspects of humanity.

While it’s occasionally cold, it’s a unique vision that deserves respect for taking CGI animation down a darker and more serious path than usual and hopefully opening the medium up to further experimental tinkering in the near future. As befits a movie about patchwork characters, it’s not entirely successful, but it’s certainly more than the sum of it’s parts and it will be criminal if it doesn’t garner serious interest come awards season.

Learn more about the movie here.