9

Being an animated film set in an Earth destroyed by man's hubris, 9 immediately draws comparison with Pixar's far superior Wall-E. The film has been developed from Shane Acker's similarly-titled, Academy Award-nominated short film, and in the short format an animated rag-doll creature exploring a blasted world is story enough (and would make a pretty great sandbox-style videogame, if the characters didn't look so much like Sackboy from littleBIGplanet) but stretched to feature length there needs to be all these extra characters and backstory and exposition that just slows things down – and this is made abundantly clear since the short film is included as an extra feature.

The voice cast is also slightly off. Elijah Wood is immediately recognisable as the titular character, which draws immediate comparisons with his Frodo Baggins (a innocent in a world he never made, on a quest for a powerful object, accompanied by a rag-tag team drawn together by adversity...), and Jennifer Connelly lacks a certain kick-ass energy as the warrior 7.

The whole thing looks gorgeous, though: the design is stunning, the CG fluid and beautiful, and this world would be a fantastic place to spend some time if it wasn't full of quest-film stereotypes or have hackneyed quasi-religious overtones. Sometimes short is much more sweet.

Extras Commentary, development featurettes, deleted scenes, '9'short film

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