"9" introduces animated action

9, the newest animated movie in theaters Sept. 9, is anything but a typical run-of-the-mill cartoon.

The film, although CGI-created, has a unique style similar to stop-motion, the kind of style Tim Burton, producer of 9, is known for in such films as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride. Shane Acker directed the film, which is based on his 2005 short film of the same name.

The plot works extremely well with original concepts and believable characters the audience will identify with and follow. 9 takes the audience on a thoroughly enjoyable yet intense post-apocalyptic journey.

To properly convey the importance of this movie I have need to go in depth into the story behind the film, so stick with me because it is worth it.

The world of the movie is a dead world void of human life and home to nine cloth beings, also known as stitch punks. From the beginning, the film's mood is depressing as Nine (voiced by Elijah Wood) awakes in an empty workshop. The film expands to hopeless as Nine looks out the window into a desolate wasteland that was once inhabited.

But hope sets in as Nine sees something moving in the distance. Upon investigation Nine meets Two (voiced by Martin Landau), a fellow stitch punk. A creature known as The Cat Beast, who is endowed with a cat skull as a head, suddenly abducts Two. Nine attempts to chase the beast, but to no avail, and in the fray he is knocked unconscious.

This first action scene had me teeming with the nail-biting stress an audience encounters when characters are in a daunting dilemma.

When Nine comes to, he meets four other stitch punks: Five, One, Eight, and Six (voiced by John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Fred Tatasciore and Crispin Glover, respectively). Regardless of Nine's pleas, One, the leader of the stitch punks, refuses to allow anyone to save Two from the mechanical beast. He claims there is no hope for him, like there was no hope for stitch punks Three, Four and Seven, all who disappeared.

Nine convinces Five to help him save Two after Five remembers Two once saved his life.

They eventually find Two alive in a cage, but as they free him the Cat Beast attacks. A masked Seven (voiced by Jennifer Connelly) counterattacks with a blade and beheads the beast. Unfortunately, a curious Nine makes a fatal decision and accidentally awakens the master machine, deemed the Fabrication Machine. Two saves Nine at the cost of his life, which is just the beginning of the surprising death toll in this PG-13 animated movie.

Seven takes Five and Nine to the library to meet the last of the stitch punks. Three and Four are mute twins who speak among themselves with flickering lights in their eyes. I respected this concept because they can also project film with their eyes, making communication far better than with words. Three and Four enlighten their fellow stitch punks on why the Fabrication Machine must be stopped.

Defeating the Fabrication machine, and all the machines it creates, becomes the main focus of the film, all the way to the unforgettable ending.

An exceptional aspect of this film is the design of the machines.

Of all the frightening and generally creepy villains, the most nightmarish was The Seamstress, a doll-faced, worm-bodied machine with spindly appendages used to bind the stitch punks after it beats them into submission with strobe light vision.

The minute details of the film are significant to the audience, such as the wrinkles on the man's hands as he constructs Nine from almost nothing; a defining moment is when he dips a quill in ink and brands a "9" onto the back of the character Nine.

A pivotal facet of the film is the voices of the actors, which gives these beings made of cloth and other odds and ends a human touch. As I watched it was hard to remember it was an animated movie. All of these factors contribute to the success of the film.

The film 9 has the undeniable ability to hold the audience's attention from the onset, through dramatic and combative scenes, to the end of the 91-minute film. Much as Nine says "This world is ours now", this mature animated movie is now yours to see and relish; but it's a good idea to maybe rethink bringing the kids.