Nine Lives (2016) Review

Time: 87 Minutes
Age Rating:
Cast:
Kevin Spacey as Tom Brand
Jennifer Garner as Lara Brand
Robbie Amell as David Brand
Cheryl Hines as Madison Camden
Malina Weissman as Rebecca Brand
Christopher Walken as Felix Perkins
Mark Consuelos as Ian Cox
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Tom Brand (Kevin Spacey) is a billionaire whose workaholic lifestyle takes him away from his loving wife Lara and adorable daughter Rebecca. Needing a present for Rebecca’s 11th birthday, Brand buys a seemingly harmless cat from a mysterious pet store. Suddenly, a bizarre turn of events traps poor Tom inside the animal’s body. The owner of the business tells him that he has one week to reconnect with his family, or live out the rest of his days as a cute and furry feline named Mr. Fuzzypants.

I can’t believe this movie actually exists, nor can I believe that director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black films) and actor Kevin Spacey is involved with this movie. Everything from the premise to the trailer looked like a bad kids movie from the 90s. And this movie is just as bad as it looked in the trailer. It is unfunny, stupid, silly and just doesn’t make any sense. But we all knew that it would be like that, just look at the trailer.

This movie is really lazily written with mostly unfunny jokes and is just overall not written well at all. Before anyone dismisses this movie as “just a kids film” and that no one should be too harsh on this movie, this movie has no idea what it’s target audience is. Sometimes it’s trying to appeal to kids with childish humour. Other times it’s filled with long business meetings that no kid would be interested in. Also there are some really adult stuff in this, way too much alcoholism in this movie and some jokes that kids won’t understand at all. They felt really out of place. And this film really isn’t right for kids. I’ll give an example, at one point (spoiler alert but who cares?) someone tries to commit suicide. In this movie. A kids movie. About someone who turns into a cat. This movie also has many jokes that didn’t land at all. The only points that I found the movie funny were some of the jokes that only adults would get and some moments which were so ridiculous.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a Kevin Spacey fan but I enjoyed seeing (or in this case mostly hearing) him in this movie. However, it’s not really a good ‘performance’ and this might be the worst movie he’s ever been in. At times it sounded like he really didn’t want to be in this movie (which I admit I found a little entertaining). Christopher Walken is enjoyable in this movie, but it’s probably because he’s Christopher Walken, and his mere involvement with a movie automatically makes said movie better. Everyone else is wasted. Jennifer Garner is in this movie and doesn’t get to do much. Basically this movie is a paycheck for the actors involved. The performances aren’t good but to be fair, it’s not like they have good material to work with.

This film is incredibly cheap. Everything feels off about this movie, direction wise. This film uses green screen so much and it is painfully obvious, which is especially shown in the first scene. It’s so embarrassing. And of course this film has a CGI cat and the animation is horrible. It is Garfield: The Movie level bad. The CGI is straight out of the 90s (which fits as this whole movie is straight out of the 90s).

Nine Lives is really bad but everyone sorta knew that it would be that way. The acting is not that great, the writing is all over the place and not even the direction is that good. If you for whatever reason were expecting this to be a good film, it’s not that at all. But I will admit there is something fascinating about this movie, the fact that it exists in today’s world. So I can’t really say that I hate this movie, it was a weird experience for me as I watched it, I still feel confused after watching it. But yeah, the movie is still awful.

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