$9.99

Despite everything, many of us still think of animation as a kid's genre. $9.99, based on stories by Etgar Keret who also co-wrote the script with the director, is an attempt to use the animation medium to express an entirely adult sensibility.

A wise, wistful study of hope and dread.

A movie that entertains and enlightens without being preachy - in fact, most of its beliefs are strenuously ambiguous; that’s a key part of the joke.

Keret’s alternately sweet and bitter sense of humor comes through clearly in $9.99, via warm voicework by vets like Geoffrey Rush and Anthony LaPaglia.

Though $9.99 manages to be quirky and enigmatic, it is in the end too self-conscious, too satisfied in its eccentricity, to achieve the full mysteriousness toward which it seems to aspire. It is odd, curious, intermittently intriguing but ultimately more interesting for its artifice than for its art.

A deliberately coarse character style that's more Gumby than Gromit.

This often haunting stop-motion Claymation movie ultimately suffers from what bedevils many live-action movies culled from short stories: a herky-jerky plot.

I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer and I am always up for watching some clay animation, but this movie is seriously depressing. Although having a book explain the meaning of life would be a good read and the price is a real deal, only one payment of $9.99!