Saw 9 tonight (no, not Bob Seger's Nine Tonight, although that would have been nice). We'd intended to go opening night (Wednesday) but the family situation wouldn't quite let us do it on a school night.

In very short: Amazing visuals. Just freakin' amazing. The textures, the nifty little surprises you get from viewing things from a strange viewpoint, the effects and stunning design make the film worth seeing. Get a good seat in a good theater. The audio work is also wonderful if a tiny bit overcooked - the first few times you hear metal fingers sliding across something, it's neat; later it seems like the (virtual) set is a little over-miked.

The down side: almost no story. None. You could write the entire plot with all salient details on one side of a 3x5 card. And what's there is pretty... recycled. Heavy borrowing from every quest movie ever made; lots from the Terminator series (seriously, when are evil robots going to get something besides glowing red eyes?) and not a little taken from Lord of the Rings - the lead character, very Frodo-like, is voiced by none other than Elijah Wood. There are two great towers - one "good" and one not only bad but occupied by a Sauron-like entity. (The latter, a factory, has a fascinatingly Gigeresque design, though.)

The story is also repetitive. Around the third time an uber-strange mechanical monster pops up to terrorize the characters, you sort of sigh and wonder how many more of them there are to go. The monsters are tremendously inventive, though, and each fascinating. But it's like a video game in which different dressing doesn't change the basic salad.

In the end, the hair-thin story boils down to "Technology is bad. Do better next time, somehow."

Or... "Hey, I've got an idea! Let's do Frodo in the land of the Terminators... with SOCK PUPPETS!"

Nah, that's too harsh. It's a sweet, if simple and trite story, set in some of the most amazing visuals - concept and execution - I've ever seen.

One aspect is just unforgiveable, though. There are nine of the sock-puppet creatures. One is female (voiced by the ever-lovely Jennifer Connelly). She is... number seven. That's right, the only female is Seven of Nine. *groan*...

I had a very similar, if less nuanced, reaction. Loved the animation and a lot of the sound design. Could have passed on pretty much every other aspect.

If you haven't yet seen it, I commend to you that was the inspiration for the feature length movie.