Technomancy is not a term  we see often, pretty much anywhere.

But despite the fact that you don’t hear the term very often, it’ll be incredibly valuable, and incredibly apt, to talk about 9.

First, a definition: technomancy is essentially magic that is derived from machines, an utterly fictional discipline of magic in which machines provide some of the effects.  It relates directly to a quote from Arthur C. Clarke which said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Thus, we have technomancy, and most of the plot of 9.

In 9, humanity has steadily advanced up the tech tree, building machines to advance society and improve their lives.  But, as is generally the case, humanity goes too far and the machines, in true Terminator fashion, rise up to destroy humanity.

Thus, after a long and protracted war, all that’s left of humanity is nine little rag doll robots and some kind of hunter-killer that looks vaguely like a wolf.  But after the last of the robots comes online, he discovers that he’s part of something much larger than he expected.

9 is an absolutely beautiful movie with lots of great action sequence and a full appreciation for the concept of technomancy.  It may well be one of the most unique action fantasies ever created, and because of that, it’s awesome.

But there’s one very critical flaw in 9–major portions of the plot will go utterly unexplained.  There are a great many whys and wherefores that are left to the viewers to figure out for themselves, and I personally find that sloppy filmmaking.  It’s doubly wrong that this should be this way, because the run time on 9 is only about eighty minutes.  They could’ve tacked on another ten, twenty minutes of run time EASILY to tackle some exposition and improved the quality of this already great movie all the more.

Make no mistake, 9 is a fun movie with lots of great points to it, but it could have been a lot more had they bothered to take a couple minutes here and there and explain a few things.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale ignores the movie’s suggestion and gives 9 a six out of ten.