9

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about 9's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of 9 completed by The Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 10 December 2009.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines.

ACCM review

This review of the movie 9 contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

The animated film 9 begins with the lifeless form of a ragdoll hanging by one arm in a ransacked room while a long-dead corpse lies on the floor. The doll, which has the number 9 imprinted on its back, falls to the ground and a few seconds later begins to move and become conscious. It gets up, goes over to a window and opens it to reveal a lifeless post-apocalyptic landscape below.

While investigating the outside surroundings, 9 (voice of Elijah Wood) encounters 2 (Martin Landau), a ragdoll being like himself out on a reconnaissance mission, but before the encounter can progress too far, the pair are attacked by a giant cat -like creature referred to as The Beast.  9 is left unconscious while 2 is carried off in the jaws of The Beast.

When 9 wakes up he finds himself in a room with a number of similar ragdoll beings including 1 (voice of Christopher Plummer), the group’s domineering leader and veteran from the machine wars, 8 (Fred Tatasciore), 1’s giant dim-witted henchman, 5 (John C. Reilly), a mechanic and ragdoll repairer and 6 (Crispin Glover) a zany obsessive sketch artist. While in their company, 1 tells 9 how the humans created technology that got out of control and that machines rose up and destroyed humanity. 1 tells 9 that The Beast will kill 2 and that there is nothing any of them can do about it. But 9 refuses to abandon 2 to The Beast and he and 5 set off to battle menacing machines, destroy The Beast and rescue 2.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Apocalypse; man verses machines, death of friends; self sacrifice.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

The film 9 contains scenes depicting intense action violence and peril, war scenes and apocalyptic cityscapes. Examples include:

• 9 hits an unsuspecting 2 in the head with a wrench, knocking him off his feet.
• We hear the sounds of creaking/scraping metal and a metal creature that resembles the skeletal remains of a giant cat appears. After a short scuffle the creature picks up the limp form of 2 in its mouth and moves off, while 9 is left lying on the ground with a torn shoulder.
• 8, a large thug-like ragdoll creature, who constantly wields a large cook’s knife shoves 9 roughly in the back and then laughs at his own actions.
• Through flashbacks, we see human soldiers fighting giant machines which shoot running men with hails of machinegun fire, then trample them down. There are loud explosions, the ground shaking and exploding bombs with men thrown through the air. We hear how the gas killed everything. 
• During a battle scene, a group of ragdoll beings walk under a helmet, using it as cover. We see one of the ragdoll beings lose his eye as a result and being carried away injured.
• 2, who appears to be unconscious, is imprisoned in a bird cage. 9 and 5 attempt to rescue 2 and The Beast attacks them, using its metal paw to knock them across the room. The scene contains lots of animal growling and snapping teeth. 7 swings down to lasso The Beast and then cut its head off with a knife attached to a pole; we see the head fall to the ground but there is no blood visible.
• In several scenes we see a spider like machine pick up ragdoll beings and suck out their life-force through their eyes and mouths. We see green light being sucked out of the ragdoll beings and into the spider machine. After the machine has finished sucking out their life-force the ragdoll beings drop lifeless to the ground with their eyes and mouths smouldering holes.
• 8 slaps 9 with enough force to send him flying across the room, and 8 also picks up 5 by the throat.
• A machine that resembles a pterodactyl flies through a window and attacks a group of ragdoll beings, snapping at them with a scissor-like beak and using its tail to fire harpoon-like needles at its victims. They run onto a rooftop while being chased by the machine and one of them throws a knife into the machine’s fan, causing the machine to stumble. 7 tries to behead the bird/machine, but misses and the machine uses its tail to harpoon him in the leg.  The machine falls into the blades of a giant fan and is destroyed, causing the building to be engulfed in flames.
• 9 cuts open the snake machine and pulls 7 out just before the snake/machine is destroyed in a mincing machine.
• When 7 learns that 1 deliberately sent 2 to his death she attacks 1, holding a knife to his throat and calling him a coward.
• Hundreds of small machines chase after 9 and 7. A barrel of flammable liquid rolls towards the creatures and explodes with the flames engulfing the crab-like creatures.  
• The Cyclops spider machine is crossing a bridge while chasing ragdoll beings and the beings fire a giant cannon at the spider machine causing massive explosions. The bridge collapses, but the spider/machine is uninjured and continues the chase, firing a flamethrower at the ragdoll beings. Several of the beings are burnt by the flames.

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of eight, including the following

• Younger children may find some elements of the ragdoll beings scary or disturbing. While the figures are doll-like in appearance one has a threatening demeanour and carries a large cooks’ knife as a weapon while his mouth is stitched shut. The ragdoll beings have claw-like metal fingers and shutter-like eyes. One of the ragdoll beings has an eye missing with a patch welded across part of his face while the female ragdoll being, 7, wears a bird skull for a helmet. 
• We see a scientist staring into a machine that is sucking green light from his mouth and eyes and are told that the machine was sucking out the man’s soul.
• All of the machine creatures may appear scary and disturbing to younger children. The Beast resembles a giant cat skeleton with large sharp teeth and knife blades for claws and a giant cat’s skull for a head. The cat/machine makes creepy sounding metallic clunks, scrapes and growls. Another machine creature resembles a combination of a snake and centipede with feature resembling the creatures from the Alien films. The creature has a creepy looking doll’s head attached with a mouth that is stitched shut with red thread and centipede like arms protruding from its body. This creature wraps up its victims in thread and then appears to consume them. The Cyclops spider has a single eye and long tentacles that suck the life force out of its victims.  Another machine resembles a giant pterodactyl with a harpoon gun tail.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Children in this age group are also likely to be disturbed by some of the violent and scary scenes described above

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this film.

Product placement

None of concern

Sexual references

None of concern

Nudity and sexual activity

None of concern

Use of substances

None of concern

Coarse language

None of concern

The movie's message

9 is an animated science fiction adventure with stunning and entertaining visual effects. However, the film contains images and themes too scary for younger children while the story line and character development are a little too thin for adults to enjoy.

The main messages from this movie are

• If you cause a problem you should be the one to fix it
• If technology is not controlled by people with morals and ethics it will destroy us.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• self sacrifice
• having a strong sense of right and wrong and being unwilling to compromise your beliefs