Producer Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian director behind Night Watch, Wanted, and 9, has released the trailer for his new film Black Lightning. While you probably won’t understand a word of the trailer unless you’re fluent in Russian, the visuals tell the story entirely: a boy gets a flying car and begins to fight crime and win the heart of his woman with it. Like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with sleeker visuals and heightened violence!

I’m quite honestly not sure what to think of this quite yet. Bekmambetov has described the film as “the Russian response to Transformers and Batman.” I’m not sure it comes across as anything but insane at the moment. The film is directed by Alexandr Voitinsky and Dmitriy Kiselev. Check out the trailer below!

How does one begin to approach a film they wanted to like?

Before viewing 9, the film had a lot of things in its favor, the first being absolutely stunning visuals. That looked to be aided by a strong, possibly original premise about a stitchpunk (my gamer side tells me to stick to “Sackboy”) being the key to humanity’s salvation. Factor in that Tim Burton’s producing, as well as Timur Bekmambetov who dazzled screens with Wanted, and you have what should be a pretty decent animated film.

9 makes sure you know it’s not going to be decent midway through. The plot borrows from every story ever written or filmed about the unlikely hero who is the savior of the universe. Understandably, the trailers did hint that this would be the central driving force but they also pretended that 9 was going to do something interesting with it. It doesn’t, and borrows very, very heavily from The Lord of the Rings and Burton’s own Edward Scissorhands. The filmmakers even go so far as to rip off the ending to the Mortal Kombat film (for the record, if you have to borrow from Paul W.S. Anderson of all people, you need your filmmaking privileges revoked.) Bottom line, Pamela Pettler and Ben Gluck’s screenplay plays it too safe and is definitely relying more on the looks of the characters to make audiences forget they didn’t bring it with a story. The pacing is also off for a film that runs under an hour and a half. Quite honestly, it feels longer than some other three hour films I’ve seen this year that moved along briskly.

Too bad 9 isn’t a very likable being. He’s described as “always willing to risk his life for others” and without giving too much away, the opposite is always happening to him and the others(there’s even a scene that explicitly shows this.) In fact I can’t recall a scene where the title character ever risks his life to save another, as everyone is always bailing him out when he’s not putting their lives at stake. Even if he’s voiced by Elijah Wood, it’s still tough to find things to like about him. Nine times out of ten he’s getting bailed out by 7, voiced by Jennifer Connelly. Who is she? The movie doesn’t explain, but she sure can take down metallic beasts stylistically. Connelly doesn’t know with the role, and comes off unnatural.

Only two of the sackpersons…I mean stitchpunks have any sort of backbone to them; Crispin Glover’s not-so-subtle Holocaust victim 6 and an ‘evil’ dictator 1 portrayed by Christopher Plummer. First Glover, who is the most likable of the bunch. He might be crazy, sure, but Glover handles the part exceptionally and who better than George McFly to play the part. Plummer’s a different matter as he’s sort of accustomed to playing the villain in animation films this year. While Charles Muntz had considerably more development, Plummer does his best to make 1 three-dimensional and succeeds with grace.

9 isn’t a complete bust though, as Acker does succeed at creating absolutely gorgeous visuals. Often times one will get so lost in the visuals and assume they’re looking at an actual landscape instead of computer generated images. Even the cartoonish designs of the humans look like physically deformed individuals. Every little stitch is detailed on the characters, as is every spec of dirt and rust on the items left behind comes in crystal clear. Praise should also be given to the designs of the the machines that inhabit this world. The Burton influence is definitely felt, but these machines are particularly terrifying in the way they look and operate. The Seamstress sticks out the most, as she toys with her prey before snatching them up. From the doll head to her snake like movements, she’ll likely crawl into children’s minds and scare them.

Of course that’s assuming children want to see the film. Where Burton’s other animated ventures has a certain charm to them, 9 alienates itself by being overly dark. Again, that’s also fine provided you have a solid story and relatable characters (see: Coraline.) While the visuals are certainly pristine in 9, it severely lacks everything required to make a solid film. The story is bland, an unlikable lead, pretty visuals and meh characters do not a good film make. Yet, this movie’s biggest problem is who will it be marketed for? It can’t marketed for kids as it’s too dark with no charm, and adults will likely lose interest quick due to the awkward pacing. Maybe that’s a blessing in  disguise, as this film doesn’t really deserve Up numbers.

Do make sure you check out our 9 giveaway while you are here!

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ 

Just when you thought the Taking Woodstock giveaway madness was over, we’re back with another giveaway to wet your appetites for tomorrow’s release of the animated film 9 from director/writer Shane Acker and producers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.

Our lovely editor Melissa ran the full scoop on 9 in an Under the Radar column a while back. Check that out here.

We’ve got over 20 Film Books to giveaway in anticipation of the film, and you can grab them the same way some of you lucky folks won the Taking Woodstock goodies.

How to Enter:

You must have a twitter account and be following @atomicpopcorn to enter. If you don’t have a twitter account please set one up here.  Please log into your twitter account and tweet the following:

Win an awesome Film Book from #9. Thanks to @atomicpopcorn more than 20 followers will win!

The winners will be notified via Twitter. This is for Residents of the USA ONLY. Sorry, out-of-towners!

More pictures and interviews are coming just in time for the release of director Shane Acker’s film 9. Starring Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, the action packed animated feature has more pictures to add onto the bunch.

Along with that, G4′s Attack of the Show has an exclusive video piece from Elijah Wood and producer Timur Bekmambetov for you all to see below. Visit the 9 movie website to play the new brain teaser game called Cognitive Circuit. Do not forget, 9 comes out in theaters on September 9th (9/9/09).

While we wait for the release of Shane Acker’s post-apocalyptic animated tale of sentient rag dolls in 9, we could do any number of activities. We could try and cut our grocery bill. We could wash the car and cash in the sticky loose change or we could just ogle the new one-sheet poster.

Do you want to see some of the best action seen in a film in a long time? Well click the play button fool! Don’t wait around trying to decide if Wanted is going to be a great movie or not. Decide for yourself.

Wanted is directed by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, of Night Watch and Day Watch previously. The movie is based on a comic book series written by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones published by Image Comics. Wanted hits theaters full force this summer on June 27th.