On 09-09-09, the movie 9 came out.  It's about a bunch of little mechanical rag doll-looking characters that roam around a post-war earth where battles between humans and robots resulted in the destruction of humanity.  Shane Acker, the director of the film, created 9 from a short film he made as a UCLA student. Visually, this is probably one of the best looking CG animated feature film I've seen in a while.  It's about time an animated CG feature strayed away from the "plastic" shaders that is overly used by Pixar and DreamWorks.  It's been over 10 years since Toy Story came out and Pixar/DreamWorks are still giving us CG movies that look like those little toys.  Fortunately, the movie 9 has the balls to try something visually new, at least in terms of the mainstream CG feature length films.  If you like Blur Studios’ game cinematics, you'll love the imagery in 9.  Tim Burton's producing role on this film seemed to influence some of the character's and environment’s designs.  Simply put, you can see the "Burton Style" that is seen in Nightmare before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.  It has dark hues, Goth, simple designs, great detail mixed with old school Disney charms. The plot was good in the beginning of the movie when there's a lot of discovery and suspense.  However, by the end, it was a little dissatisfying as the main character doesn't seem to grow at all.  Throughout the movie, the audience is presented with two main viewpoints on how to live life by either curiosity or fear.  We're supposed to cheer for curiosity, but I thought the character who was supposed to be afraid was simply being cautious.  In the end, some characters learn facts, but what fun is knowledge without "more" friends to share them with?  Still, it's a good watch. Rating: GOODNESS