9

Finally, a film that craft-fair hipsters and sci-fi nerds can take each other to see on first dates: the feature-length elaboration of director Shane Acker’s animated, Oscar-nominated 2004 short. It’s a familiar and perfunctory post-apocalyptic scenario, in which machines have exterminated humans and laid waste to the planet. But hope is not lost: There are little living dolls, made mostly of fabric by human hands. How clever that a film so rich with computer-generated imagery should emphasize tactility. Still, the absence of dialogue in Acker’s short only reinforced its wow-cool factor, whereas this version, which also employs Corpse Bride screenwriter Pamela Pettler and the vocal talents of several famous actors, tends to contradict the wow-cool factor with lots of unnecessary spoken explanation. It only reminds us how great the movie looks and how little it really has to say.