9

DIRECTOR: Shane Acker

voices: Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C Reilly, Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly

rating: HHH

This animation film on earth being destroyed in a man vs machines battle, with the only ones surviving being strange little beings in sacks and metal, sold itself on being released on 9.9.09. You discover another reason right at the end, perhaps inspired from the expression of a cat having nine lives. But, of course, that is on the assumption that you sit through to the end, surviving nearly 90 minutes of destruction, explosion and machines which really bear no resemblance to anything you may have seen before, despite the remarkable effects on display.

In the year of Terminator, Transformers etc, that’s a machine too many.