Movie review by Greg Carlson

During the closing credit roll of “A Serious Man,” the Coens insist that “no Jews were harmed” in the making of their bleak and brilliant film.  This piercing reminder of Joel and Ethan’s particular worldview also points to the filmmakers’ finely tuned ability to deftly integrate the deadly serious and the ridiculously comic.  Few auteurs can match the siblings’ willingness to explore tragedy and personal failure with unrelenting laughter, and while many have posited that “A Serious Man” is their most “personal” film, it is simply one more in a chain of intimate and distinctive treasures stamped with unmistakable originality.

Michael Stuhlbarg, expertly cast, plays nerdy academic Larry Gopnik, a cautious and careful man whose life unravels with alarming speed just ahead of his doubtful bid for tenure.  In short order, Larry is besieged by a manipulative student insistent on a passing grade, learns that his wife wants a divorce in order to marry a smug acquaintance, copes with his lazy brother’s protracted habitation on the living room couch, and fights lustful urges for the seductive nude sunbather who lives next-door while fearing the anti-Semitic encroachment of another neighbor.  Meanwhile, Larry’s son Danny spends more time getting high, listening to Jefferson Airplane, and squabbling with his older sister than studying for his Bar Mitzvah.

Along with the major obstacles in Larry’s life, the Coens introduce several minor annoyances, ranging from auto accidents to pestering phone calls from the Columbia Record Club.  One of the movie’s funniest blow-outs observes Gopnik’s mounting exasperation at being sent the featured album selection “Santana, Abraxas.”  He repeatedly spits the title as if it were a curse, and one can picture Joel and Ethan fighting back tears of laughter behind the camera.  Of course, the film’s 1967 setting makes “Abraxas,” which was not released until 1970, an anachronistic choice, but Larry’s emphatic rejection – he does not want “Abraxas,” he did not order “Abraxas,” and he will not listen to “Abraxas” – parallels his spiritual deafness and demonstrates the dizzying skill with which the Coens layer their parable.

Like their best work, which has now grown to a sizable collection of titles, “A Serious Man” capitalizes on the deadpan talents of a top-notch ensemble equipped to speak absurd Coen Brothers dialogue in earnest.  The excellent Richard Kind slithers through his role as freeloading Uncle Arthur.  Arthur constantly locks himself in the bathroom to drain the pus from a particularly stubborn sebaceous cyst, but his facility for complex mathematics has led to the design of the Mentaculus, a complex, mystical numerology that Arthur uses not to understand the workings of the universe but rather to cheat at card games.

Arthur’s Mentaculus serves perfectly as a metaphor for the metaphysical considerations the Coens explore with vigor.  An ability to know the divine is impossible given the human impulses toward acquiring tangible, earthly rewards.  As Larry’s troubles multiply, he seeks counsel from rabbinical authorities, and each of the visits vibrates with superbly calibrated comic timing.  In one of the meetings, Larry is told a fanciful story about a mysterious inscription on the teeth of a goy, and is chided by the rabbi for wondering aloud what happened to the gentile.  “Who cares?” comes the response, adding another quintessential Coen moment to their wondrous archive.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

For Michael Jackson believers, especially those who held tickets for one of the 50 planned O2 arena live dates, “This Is It” will stir up strong feelings of ecstasy and heartache.  Because the footage used to compile the movie was not intended for public presentation beyond the possibility of some extra DVD content, “This Is It” simultaneously hints at the dazzling spectacle being rehearsed and thrills with its unguarded, rough-around-the-edges status as a work in progress.  Far from ghoulish exploitation, “This Is It” refocuses attention on Michael Jackson as a ferociously talented performer in his element.

Directed by Kenny Ortega, Jackson’s principal creative partner in the conception of the stage show that was scheduled to debut on July 13, 2009, “This Is It” blends aspects of the traditional concert film with several familiar tropes of the backstage musical.  The opening of the movie introduces many of Jackson’s grateful backup dancers, but before any individual personalities might be established in the style of “Madonna: Truth or Dare,” Ortega focuses intently and unwaveringly on the solo superstar, at one point reminding the members of the ensemble that they are there to function as an extension of MJ.

Ortega smartly resists the urge to truncate songs, offering full-length versions of most tracks even if they must be stitched together from several different video takes.  It is impossible to know whether the sequencing of the tunes in the movie follows the proposed concert program, but “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” makes for a blistering opener.  The classic fourth single from “Thriller” – which never had a music video – sets the tone for “This Is It,” taking viewers through a meticulously crafted arrangement that honors the song’s integrity without merely duplicating the recorded album version.

This pattern continues on most of the subsequent numbers, drawing heavily from “Thriller” and “Bad.”  The “Dangerous” and “Invincible” albums are also well represented, but curiously, the brilliant “Off the Wall” is thoroughly neglected.  Standout sequences include an elaborate 3D overhaul of “Thriller” with zombies crawling out of what appears to be a Napoleonic necropolis, a sultry “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You,” and a stirring “Human Nature.”  Along with “Thriller,” “Smooth Criminal” receives substantial pre-production attention, merging Jackson into film noir scenes with Hollywood legends like Rita Hayworth and Humphrey Bogart.

Not all the production numbers sustain the spine-tingling magnificence of Jackson’s undisputed benchmarks.  A syrupy “Earth Song” is light years from “Billie Jean” in both intellectual acumen and musical quality, and the accompanying imagery of a cherubic moppet caught in a burned out nightmare of ecological decimation numbs viewers with its cloying, scolding prophecy.  Jackson’s socially minded work was never accused of subtlety, but alongside “Earth Song,” “Man in the Mirror” is a model of sophisticated restraint.  The musical performances throughout the documentary are frequently interrupted by glimpses of Jackson critiquing and calibrating the tiniest of details, and these pauses offer a stark turnaround from popular images of Jackson as a weak, addled, spaced-out weirdo.  Far from the incomprehensible, out-of-touch naïf seen in the media for years, Jackson commands the stage in “This Is It” like he was born on it.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Reviewers should have a grand time coming up with all manner of clever aviation metaphors as they trash “Amelia,” a handsome but empty biopic of iconic pilot Amelia Earhart.  One might say that Mira Nair’s film fails to take flight, that the script by Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan crashes shortly after takeoff, and the dull experience of suffering through the feature will cause potential audiences to vanish without a trace.  Nair, whose hit-or-miss career as a filmmaker contains a substantial number of clunkers along with bright spots like breakthrough “Salaam Bombay!” and critical high point “Monsoon Wedding,” never gets a grip on her subject.  The result is the very nadir of the fictionalized biography: a superficial highlight reel that fails to connect us to an extraordinary life.

“Amelia” stars two-time Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank as Earhart, and the casting is only one indicator among many that the filmmakers had set their sights on Oscar recognition.  Swank certainly embraces the challenge with fierce determination, but the off-putting accent – which never even flirts with credibility – and the thudding repetition of the scenes, do the performer no favors.  Neither does the glib voiceover narration, in which Earhart describes her passion to be airborne as if practicing to write greeting cards.

Earhart’s personal relationships with the various men in her life dominate the drama and siphon attention from her drive to empower women as pilots.  Nair flirts with the idea that Earhart’s fame was the result of calculating self-promotion, but the script resolutely paints the aviatrix as a sun-kissed saint disdainful of the product endorsements she made to help finance her expensive avocation.  Richard Gere, as Earhart’s publisher and husband George Putnam, plays the realist to Earhart’s idealist.  She reminds him that she just “wants to be free” so many times that “Amelia” might have inspired a drinking game were it not so crushingly insipid.

Alongside Gere, Ewan McGregor appears as commercial aviation pioneer Gene Vidal, who purportedly entered into an affair with Earhart.  McGregor’s character exists to service the dramatic structure as the third side of a romantic triangle, but save for one prolonged kiss in an elevator, the movie offers no hint that Earhart felt passion for anything but flying.  Christopher Eccleston, as Earhart’s navigator Fred Noonan, is reduced to an alcoholic liability, giving Earhart one more opportunity to convince Putnam that she can “handle it” when her husband fears the worst.  Supporting women fare even worse: Cherry Jones plays Eleanor Roosevelt in a fleeting cameo and Mia Wasikowska barely registers as rival pilot Elinor Smith.

Even though “Amelia” zips through many of Earhart’s notable accomplishments in advance of her ill-fated around-the-world attempt, Nair handles the disappearance with piety.  The decades-long public fascination with Earhart has much to do with the unsolved status of her almost certain death.  Unwilling to entertain any of the durable conspiracy theories many of us heard about as children (including legends that Earhart spied for FDR and/or was executed by the Japanese after surviving a crash landing), Nair stages the final moments of Earhart’s life with stoicism and reverence.  With the exception of these final scenes, however, the application of so much careful obeisance melts dynamic history into tiresome lecture.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

So potent is the alchemy of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 “Where the Wild Things Are” that writers, critics, and bloggers have recently generated the equivalent of several monographs addressing its potentialities of meaning: J. Hoberman notes John Cech’s “Angels and Wild Things: The Archetypal Poetics of Maurice Sendak,” Jack Shafer visits Sendak’s longstanding animosity directed against Bruno Bettelheim, and Dana Stevens mentions a Bill Moyers interview – one of several places where Sendak revealed that the inspiration for the design of his hallmark creatures bubbled up from indigestible memories of his grotesque relatives demanding food, attention, and kisses.

Spike Jonze’s lavishly budgeted adaptation contributes another chapter to the media history of the Wild Things, joining Gene Deitch’s 1973 animated short and Oliver Knussen’s 1980s opera.  Following an intimate and keenly observed opening section that introduces the painful isolation of Max (Max Records), the wolf-suited child sets sail for the titular domain.  Upon arrival, he encounters the Wild Things, is quickly appointed king, and sets about declaring the start of the wild rumpus, which involves more tree smashing than the book.  Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, and Max morphs from mischief-maker to harried parent, navigating the strange grievances of his subjects and intervening in their squabbles.

Jonze and his collaborators commendably respect the essence of Sendak’s original, even as they enlarge to feature-length running time a work that takes about seven minutes to read.  Do not, however, expect an exact replica.  In “Heads On and We Shoot: The Making of Where the Wild Things Are,” a beautiful companion book to the movie that offers pleasures distinct from the film watching experience, Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggers share the anecdote that Sendak was adamantly opposed to the film’s omission of the bedroom-to-forest transformation scene.  Sendak’s objection proves correct, and despite Jonze’s self-defense, many aficionados will sorely miss the treasured sequence.

Additionally, something is lost in the act of assigning names to the unnamable Wild Things, who remained mystically anonymous in the original text.  Sendak’s application of the names of relations for the Knussen opera (Moishe, Tzippy, Bernard, Bruno, and Emile) are jettisoned in favor of new monikers Carol, KW, Judith, Ira, Alexander, and Douglas.  The human-sounding appellations ground the creatures in the kind of realism identified by Jonze as a crucial component of his version of the Wild Things.  Identification through naming can also impart unanticipated consequences related to classification, assimilation, and limitation, narrowing possibilities by ruling out all the things that Things are not.

Sendak, credited as one of the film’s producers, has been publicly supportive of Jonze’s vision, and the director’s melancholy – some have said depressing – construction of Max’s imaginative odyssey is strikingly bold and clearly personal.  Perhaps the Wild Things, voiced by performers including James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, and Paul Dano, say too much, too often.  Considering, however, that so many other directors might have made a garish, instantly dated hash of the source material – “ How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000) and “The Cat in the Hat” (2003) jump immediately to mind – “Where the Wild Things Are” exists in a unique class.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As beautiful and exciting as the music made by its trio of subjects, “It Might Get Loud” is a warmly engaging documentary that will please and delight longtime fans of Led Zeppelin, U2, and the White Stripes.  The movie will also most certainly create new admirers.  Conceived by producer Thomas Tull, “It Might Get Loud” manages a fresh take on the rock movie, focusing attention on the intimate relationship between musician and instrument instead of the sometimes caustic connection between obsessive fan and egomaniacal, self-indulgent superstar.  What unfolds is a character-driven portrait of the working methods, inspirations, and personal histories of Jimmy Page, the Edge, and Jack White.

Elegantly assembled by director Davis Guggenheim, “It Might Get Loud” alternates between individual vignettes and a Los Angeles soundstage meeting dubbed the “Summit” – an unscripted guitar clinic/conversation that progresses from tentative and guarded conference to full blown jam session.  In some of the most thrilling scenes in the movie, the guitarists take turns teaching signature riffs.  The Edge rings out “I Will Follow,” White takes apart “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” and Page blows the minds of his younger counterparts with the monstrous grind of “Whole Lotta Love” as Edge and White break into broad smiles.

Outside the “Summit” and the visits to each player’s home turf, Guggenheim and his collaborators dish up a wealth of archival material.  Short animated segments illustrate anecdotes including a tale about White’s cluttered bedroom and a visual expression of the Edge’s fascination with return echo that, as he describes it, “fill[s] in notes that I’m not playing, like two guitar players rather than one.”  Mindful of the age and generational differences among the artists, Guggenheim contrasts their attitudes and styles, most noticeably how the Edge’s multilayered special effects wizardry departs from White’s insistence on self-imposed primitivism (even though the film makes clear that all three of its participants embrace invention and experimentation).

The strong personalities of Page, Edge, and White complement the movie’s focus on the power of song; at various points the men identify tracks of deep personal impact in their artistic journeys.  The startlingly confidential snapshots – Page launching into impromptu air-guitar to Link Wray’s glorious “Rumble,” Edge’s epiphany at the raw intensity of do-it-yourself bands like the Ramones, the Clash, and the Buzzcocks, and White’s revelatory bewilderment at the Flat Duo Jets’ interpretation of “Froggie Went a Courtin’” and Son House’s “Grinnin’ in Your Face” – have an oddly moving way of reminding viewers that all masters were once beginners.

In the final scenes, Page, Edge, and White morph into a howling Cerberus as they tear through “In My Time of Dying.”  Then, following a brief coda that salutes the value of fortune and timing, they get together on the Band’s “The Weight,” the kind of sturdy ballad beloved by listeners and practitioners alike.  One imagines that while all appreciated the results of the “Summit,” relative youngster White left feeling good about standing shoulder to shoulder with a veteran sonic innovator and an elder statesman who carries living legend status.  With those kinds of influences close at hand, I can’t wait to hear the next White Stripes record.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review discusses the identity of an actor who makes an unexpected appearance in “Zombieland.”  Do not read the article if you plan to attend the movie and would like to preserve the surprise.

Neophyte feature director Ruben Fleischer delivers one of the most breathless and entertaining movies of the year in “Zombieland,” a video game-like road trip through a gruesomely funny carnival of rainbow colored, post-apocalyptic mayhem and survivalism.  Blasting through some genre conventions while honoring sacrosanct linchpins, Fleischer’s approach most closely parallels Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s witty “Shaun of the Dead,” the gold standard of zombie comedy.  The self-consciously stylish “Zombieland” is fueled by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick’s nimble script, hewing closer to the lighthearted quips of the “Evil Dead” series than the gallows humor of George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” sequels.

The action of “Zombieland” picks up with society already in chaotic freefall.  A devilishly creative credit sequence set to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” presents a gallery of dread in gorgeously silky slow motion, introducing the basic rules that have facilitated IBS-suffering protagonist Columbus’ (Jesse Eisenberg) vitality in a world overrun by flesh-eating ghouls.  The wry criteria, which continue to pop up on the screen throughout the duration of the movie, include obvious fundamentals like “check the backseat” and “beware of bathrooms,” as well as sound advice on the value of seatbelts and the necessity of the double tap when verifying a zombie’s incapacitation.

Columbus joins forces with seasoned zombie killer Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and shortly thereafter the men cross paths with tricky sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who are headed toward a supposedly zombie-free amusement park.  The mismatched quartet bicker like the Griswolds en route to Walley World, and the filmmakers simultaneously mock and embrace the transformation of the ragtag crew into a functioning family unit.  Harrelson’s mugging, scene-stealing performance challenges the other actors, but Eisenberg, Stone and Breslin manage to hold their own.  The movie stumbles a little when resorting to a predictable girls-in-peril complication in the plotting, but most of the action is smartly engineered.

One of the most memorable sequences in “Zombieland” detours the foursome to the opulent mansion of Bill Murray, playing a droll version of himself in a clinic of self-parody on par with John Malkovich in “Being John Malkovich.”  Murray, who has disguised himself as a rotting corpse to blend in with the creatures that would otherwise devour him, gamely hosts the desperate interlopers.   The actor gracefully accepts the fawning praise of his star-struck guests, and participates in the recreation of a scene from “Ghostbusters.”  Like a similar take-off in “Be Kind Rewind,” the “sweded” bit of Ivan Reitman’s comic colossus reminds viewers of the collective fun of going to the movies.

Additionally, the funfair setting for the movie’s climactic showdown, in which zombies are inventively dispatched with the help of repurposed rides and games, echoes the guilt-free saturnalia that is a crucial byproduct of zombie cinema: the opportunity for audiences to cheer the vicarious physical pleasures of seeing woeful meat puppets slaughtered in large numbers.  Far from being antisocial, viewer gratification in witnessing the misfortunes of the screen undead allows the concurrent recognition and denial of one’s own death.  “Zombieland” can certainly be enjoyed without the need of a psychoanalytic reading, but it is rich enough to accommodate multiple interpretations.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody will assuredly not be making a second trip to the stage of the Kodak Theatre for “Jennifer’s Body,” a phony rehash of too many better movies to count (“Carrie,” “The Exorcist,” and “Heathers” are among the obvious influences). Snotty, snide, and contemptuous of both its characters and the audience likely to see it, “Jennifer’s Body” isn’t funny enough to be a comedy and certainly isn’t scary enough to be a horror film. The movie relentlessly emphasizes starlet-of-the-moment Megan Fox’s good looks, but the comely performer – whose acting chops remain in serious question – plays an insatiable succubus with little heart and not a trace of soul.

Some defenders have raised the possibility that Fox was cast precisely because Jennifer needs to be gorgeous on the outside and hollow on the inside, but Cody refuses to make any distinction between the pre-demonic Jennifer and the cruel monster she becomes. The story’s point of view belongs to Jennifer’s doormat of a best pal, the transparently monikered Needy (Amanda Seyfried). Despite the claim that “sandbox love never dies,” Needy seems too earnest and genuine to accept the torrent of callous, pitiless sadism that Jennifer dishes out to everyone in her path. The suggestion that Needy harbors a serious crush on Jennifer is underdeveloped, turning a late stage make-out session between the girls into little more than tease and titillation.

While it is easy to share Cody’s disdain for rock poseurs who prey on female fans, “Jennifer’s Body” adds little to the discussion of women in the horror genre, especially where revenge fantasies intersect with cultural anxieties over sexuality. To the filmmakers’ credit, “Jennifer’s Body” channels its point of view through a female protagonist, but Needy’s own erotic curiosity about her BFF fixes Fox’s Jennifer as the object of our gaze as well. The movie never gets tired of revealing Fox in various states of undress (it does, however, eschew nudity), and Jennifer narcissistically admires herself in a mirror’s reflection in more than one scene.

Cody’s stylized teen-speak elevated several idiotic lines from “Juno” to catchphrase status (the use of “homeskillet” should be banned from all future conversation), but at least in that movie the impossible cleverness was placed in the service of understanding a central character who used her intelligence as a shield against fear and uncertainty. In “Jennifer’s Body,” the arch one-liners are poisonous: Needy and Jennifer mock-affectionately call each other nicknames like Vagisil and Monistat, mash-up terms like “freaktarded” are liberally applied, and groaners like “Move on, dot org” instantly date the film.

Cody’s dialogue is not afforded much help from Karyn Kusama’s direction, which emphasizes cheap shocks and a reliance on unconvincing CGI whenever Jennifer’s fanged maw opens to feed on her luckless victims. Only one scene, an atmospheric showdown in a neglected swimming pool, conjures some magic that transcends the drab locations meant to suggest the provincial Minnesota hamlet Devil’s Kettle, but by the time the movie gets to it, patience and interest have been sorely strained.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Like the Coen Brothers, director Steven Soderbergh has been accused of making movies that discount, ignore, or purposefully flummox viewers in favor of the creator’s own personal amusement. “The Informant!” is not as absurdly funny as the products of Joel and Ethan’s worldview, but Soderbergh makes mincemeat of Kurt Eichenwald’s book about Mark Whitacre, a prevaricating whistleblower whose own crimes were temporarily papered over when he began spying on his employer, Archer Daniels Midland, for the FBI. With its sizable supporting cast of comics (including cameos by the Smothers Brothers) and a jokey score by Marvin Hamlisch, “The Informant!” warns viewers that they will not be seeing a “true story.”

Matt Damon plays Whitacre as a deluded fabulist who rationalizes a bizarre string of bigger and bigger fibs to avoid being caught for his own indiscretions. With a bulked-up frame, ridiculous hairpiece, and nerdy spectacles, Damon physically distances himself from his typical screen persona. The audience might at first be inclined to like Damon’s Whitacre, who eagerly embraces his opportunity to role-play as a spy for federal agents, but Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns are quick to exploit the man’s deep flaws. As a result, Whitacre grows less and less sympathetic as the information he provides to his contacts fails to check out.

Whitacre’s foibles are punctuated by interior monologues that betray his mental state through stream of consciousness ruminations on topics ranging from designer neckties to Japanese businessmen who purchase used panties. The voiceover thoughts pop up whenever Whitacre should be focusing his attention on keeping straight his web of lies. Sounding like Jack Handey’s “Deep Thoughts,” the non sequitur surrealisms in Whitacre’s head add another layer of incredulity to the upside down world constructed out of the man’s fraudulent layers of deceit.

Even though “The Informant!” is set in a corporate culture populated almost entirely by men, the movie’s greatest deficiency is the lack of interest taken in Whitacre’s loyal wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey). The movie’s narrative resolutely follows a linear unraveling of Whitacre’s mountain of myths, and when the story includes Ginger, she unwaveringly stands by her mate. With the exception of a late scene that provides small insight into Ginger’s fatigue with the lengthy ordeal, we never know the extent to which she believes her husband’s stories. Lynskey, however, is a skillful actor, and manages to energize an underwritten role.

Soderbergh, who shot “The Informant!” under his usual alias Peter Andrews, frames the drab corporate settings with a wickedly cruel sense of desolation. The bad suits, ghoulish coiffures, and shiny sports cars mock Whitacre’s desperation to cast himself as the Tom Cruise version of the protagonist in John Grisham’s “The Firm,” a good guy surrounded by bad guys intent on doing him harm. This detail is one of Sodergbergh’s many reminders that feature films “based on real events” are constructed as fiction no matter how much we would like to believe otherwise. The “so there” that Soderbergh attaches to the text that opens the movie impishly insults the self-applied seriousness that accompanies so many screen adaptations touting journalistic factualism.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The expanded version of Shane Acker’s 2005 computer animated short “9” bears many unwelcome traits that can accompany movies making the leap to feature length, most notably the change from silent protagonists to celebrity-voiced chatterboxes. Despite the detailed look of the film’s post-apocalyptic, industrial wasteland, “9” struggles to apply the same level of creativity to its storyline as it does to what Acker calls its “stitchpunk” characters. Only the most devoted animation and science fiction fans will forgive the movie’s narrative resemblance to “The Lord of the Rings” and scripter Pamela Pettler’s appallingly feebleminded dialogue, which constantly tarnishes the imaginative capability of the film’s otherworldly landscapes.

Elijah Wood plays the title figure, a zippered cloth ragdoll with an expressive mouth and blinking diaphragm shutters in his goggle eyes. The last in a line of increasingly augmented homunculi, 9 clashes with the conservative 1 (Christopher Plummer), a wizened ecclesiast who resembles the vaguely amphibious Nute Gunray from the “Star Wars” prequels. Along with devoted sidekick 5 (John C. Reilly), 9 ventures forth to uncover the secrets of his origin and the function of a mysterious talisman. The journey is fraught with peril, and 9 is aided on his quest by the rebellious 7 (Jennifer Connelly), whose fearlessness inspires 9 as much as it terrifies 1.

The vistas and objects of “9” radiate with a peculiar familiarity even as the filmmakers struggle to set them apart from their inspirations. The clever employment of everyday objects repurposed for use by miniature agents (i.e. a single scissor blade wielded as a sword) was a staple of centuries-old folktales of the “Tom Thumb” variety long before animators like Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney, and Chuck Jones delighted viewers with cartoon shorts depicting tiny heroes drinking from thimbles or shoveling soap flakes with teaspoons. This effect, which adds a great deal of color to “9,” can be traced to both vintage cartoons and more recent stop motion work, including Mark Gustafson’s 1994 “Mr. Resistor.”

“9” owes an even greater visual debt to Stephen and Timothy Quay, Fred Stuhr, and Tim Burton (one of the producers of “9”), especially in Acker’s affinity for nightmarish mechanical apparatuses with broken porcelain doll faces, sharp razors, and serpentine and arachnidan movements. The decimated landscape in which 9 and his companions struggle to survive may mirror the blighted ghost city of “WALL-E,” but the movies part company at this similarity. The ecological warning of the Pixar film is replaced with dire omens concerning artificial intelligence and technology run amok, ala “The Terminator.”

The crushing tedium of “9” manifests in the worthless banalities mouthed by its naïve, bullheaded characters and the endless cycle of chase and escape that eats up the rest of the screen minutes. Pettler, whose script for “Monster House” is substantially more refined than “9,” skips along the surface of several themes that could have addressed rich philosophical terrain. Instead of considering what it means to be alive or yearning to better understand their creator, the stitchpunks gush streams of moronic obviousness, presumably to explain the empty mythology that governs their world. “9” restages a number of scenes depicted in Acker’s Academy Award-nominated short film, but never improves upon them.