Why was 6 afraid of 7?

Okay, that's a really bad joke. I apologize. But I will say this, I walked into Shane Acker's 9 with high expectations. With Tim Burton's involvement, the PG-13 rating and Focus Features' previous animated film Coraline, I was sure this was going to be an excellant film. The trailers made the movie stick out and seem exciting enough on its own. But when you really get around to seeing 9, while it picks up and gets better as the movie goes on, it's a bit of a letdown.

The concept itself, the movie being a feature-length version of the 2005 short film of the same name which was nominated for Best Animated Short at the Oscars, is quite unique. But it also harms the film. The characters are rather hard to keep track of not by personality but by name or number in this case. It's hard to keep track of who lives and who dies and which number is which (besides 9) until the movie really begins to pick up and when it does, it's not intense at all. But it's certainly a movie that makes you jump and is very exciting without being too outlandish. The plot twist the film takes when you think it is about to end definitely comes as a surprise and helps bring the movie to a great climax.

Is 9 an animated feature we will all take notice of? Quite honetsly, no. Of the animated films of 2009, 9 falls way under Up, Coraline and Ponyo. I will say that 9 had a much better storyline and all-around better film than Monsters vs Aliens. There isn't really much else to say about 9 due to its short length of 79 minutes. It is worth seeing but you don't need to rush out and go see it. I believe a 2.5 out of 4 is a fair rating for 9.