The opening scene shows the lead character, 9, waking up in a robotic workshop amidst the hellscape. He finds a small talisman on the ground next to his deceased human creator and puts it in his pocket. As he goes out to explore he finds ruined buildings and a robotic, skeletal dog-monster roaming around. Soon he meets another thing like him, 2, who is and older, wiser being, who has clearly been around for longer and knows how to survive in this hard world. 2 is captured by the dog-monster and taken away along with the talisman. Ultimately 9 meets up with a group of other rag-doll robots, led by a king, 1, and a bruiser, 8. 1 has decided that the world is too dangerous so they should stay in their ruined-church home. 9 is curious about the world he is in and goes out to search for 2.
9 finds 2 in an abandoned factory/mill inside a cage. He frees his friend and finds with the help of the the sexy lady robot, 7 and gets back his talisman. When he begins playing with the object, he awakens a mega-robot that begins manufacturing an army of machines bent on destruction. It turns out this super machine was the undoing of the humans and possibly the robot friends.
The computer animation in the film is very nice and I really like that it has a dark and dirty look throughout. I don't watch much Japanese animation, where I think the theme of the post-Apocalypse is more common, so I was glad to get a taste of it here. Director Shane Acker worked on the visual effects of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King so he has a good background in hellish wastelands. The use of organic, fabric materials that make up the 'skin' of the robots and the mechanical objects that are inside of them and around them are a wonderful visual juxtaposition.
At times the film feels like John Ford's The Searchers and at times it feels like Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo and Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (which, of course, are two sides of the same coin). Westerns are the core of Sci-Fi/Fantasy and I like that Acker really embraced them. The question for 9 is not whether he can survive, but how he can survive with others - with his friends. Living alone or leaving his fellow beings to die is unthinkable to him. As he sets out to find 2 he is only joined by 5 and is spurned by the others (like Will Kane was), but is ultimately joined by other beings he meets, the crazyish 6, 7 and two twin 4s as well as 1 and 8 who decide to come along later (similar to John T. Chance's story). I loved these classic Western elements.
I also love the spiritual level of the story. It deals with many eternal humanist questions. What happens when we die? What happens to the world after humans die out? Can humanity continue after we are gone in robots and computers? Is there a human spirit and can robots can it be transferred to robots?
I think the script is a bit rough, structure-wise and there is a false ending too early that feels like a false ending and is a bit juvenile. Still, the content of the script is wonderful. This is a movie that kids could watch, but it's a bit dark and I don't think they would understand. This is a grown-up movie with mature subject matter and very interesting.
Stars: 3 of 4
I don't think it's a kids movie (meaning under 12) at all, as you say at the end. I loved the look but found the story fairly inert, although an improvement on the short it was based on. I don't quite get the western reference. I don't really see that at all. But both genres can be mythic so I suppose it's not a stretch. But the sci-fi story was way too familiar and sketchy to count for much. Awesome to look at but pretty dull. The false ending was indeed ridiculous.
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