9 Review

In mid-2004, after working on it for some four-and-a-half years, UCLA student Shane Acker completed his short animated thesis film (and labour of love) 9, named for the number painted on the sackcloth back of its diminutive ragdoll protagonist. Over the course of 11 mesmerising minutes, the mute #9 uses what he can find in his post-apocalyptic landscape to outwit a giant, bestial robot and to liberate the captured souls of his eight friends, before carrying the torch into an unknown future.

In this compact slice of dark science fantasy, Acker's homespun textures and bric-a-brac sensibility were clearly influenced by the works of Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay, even as he paid explicit homage (via a familiar reticulated lamp whose lightbulb is pillaged by #9) to the more mainstream animation of Disney-Pixar. The aesthetic of 9 was simply stunning, while its dialogue-free story was elliptical, intriguing and economic - and so Acker duly won himself the Gold Medal at the 2005 Student Academy Awards and a nomination at the 2006 Oscars for Best Animated Short Film.

Suddenly the student and his project had become a quirky commodity. When filmmakers Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride) and Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Wanted) took interest, a feature-length remake became all but inevitable. It was agreed that Acker should remain in the director's chair for what would be his feature debut, with Burton, Bekmambetov and others producing, while Pamela Pettler (one of the screenwriters who had worked on Corpse Bride) would step in to turn Acker's original barebones scenario into a fully fledged screenplay, complete with explanatory backstories, an increased number of characters, and even some spoken lines. With these changes, however, far more has been lost than gained.