2009 Review #25: District 9

District 9

Rated R

(Language, Violence and gruesome blood and gore)

1 hour 52 minutes

Storyline:

An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly find a kindred spirit in a government agent that is exposed to their biotechnology.

Starring:

Sharlto Copley

Jason Cope

Nathalie Boltt

Sylvaine Strike

William Allen Young

John Summer

Critics Rating:

A-

My Rating:

A

I'll just go right out and say it: 8 months into the movie season and I have to say that District 9 is probably one of the very best films of 2009. It is certainly the most fresh and original film of the year, if not in many years. In terms of sci-fi action films, this one ranks as one of my all time favorites. This is a movie I think every fan of film should go see...just please don't take your younger kids.

This is Neill Blomkamp first mainstream directed film, and he got a lot of help from Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson to bring this film to the forefront. I have to say, for a up and coming director, he did a masterful job bringing this amazing story to life. This world of District 9 (an essential refugee camp for alien life forms also called "prawns") felt so unbelievable real and gritty. You tend to feel bad for this "prawns" and hate the human characters. This slum they created looked like an actual refugee camp. The realism really helped you sink into this world and almost become apart of it all.

The visual effects were something else! These were some of the best special effects I've seen in a film. Most of the time, you couldn't even tell you were looking at any CGI. That mothership that hovers over the city was remarkable. It looked like an actual object that was not created by any computer imagery. The aliens were incredibly well done. You could tell in some scenes that they were obvious CGI, but a lot of the scenes you had no idea. They were not your typical film aliens either, I thought they looked awesome. They were so unique looking, and yes, they were really gross. I loved the fresh "design" of these creatures, and I'm glad they weren't the stereotypical movie aliens.

The first half of the film was more set up and more dramatic. The second half of the film was all action, and boy oh boy was it fun to watch! These action scenes were put together so well, and I thought they were tense, exciting, explosive and damn entertaining! And they were needed too, they were never filler action moments just for the sole purpose to have big explosions. These scenes helped carry the film, they were necessary for the story to go forward. Those alien weapons (that can only be operated by the aliens) are so cool! They reminded me somewhat of some of the weapons from another sci-fi film Minority Report (one of my favorites!). These guns though, obliterated the humans to nothingness. Those guns were awesome! One shot and the humans literally no longer existed, it's as if they evaporated. I just loved how those weapons worked, and they were fun to watch in action. Simply some wonderful action, probably the best I've seen all year.

They storyline is where most of the originality came from. This is not your typical sci-fi alien flick. Here we care for the aliens, we are rooting for them. We hate the human beings, well most of them. The movie begins with some grainy documentary footage of an alien mothership that stalled over the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. It just sits there, and doesn't attack. It sits for a long while before the government intervenes and enters the ship only to find millions of sick alien lifeforms. The government decides to remove all these aliens and throw them in what is basically a refugee camp. These aliens would co-exist with human refugees in this camp. The main part of the film takes place twenty years later and the government is starting to evict the aliens and move them to a new camp away from the humans (because their have been murders and theft, etc.) that is actually less comfortable then the one they currently live in. The aliens deal with slumlords, by exchanging weapons for cat food (the aliens took a liking the cat food).

The first half of the film feature the character of Wikus (Sharlto Copley) as he begins this raid of sorts to evict the aliens. He soon finds a weird canister in one of their homes that sprays a black liquid on his face. Long story short, he becomes "infected" with alien blood and slowly begins to morph into one of them (he grows an alien hand) and is sought out by the government because he can now operate the alien weapons. They want to be able to control these weapons and sell them, and he quickly becomes the most wanted human in the world. The rest of the movie is his attempts to avoid them and also to get back to his wife. In his journey he befriends an alien father and son that knows how to get to the mothership and save Wikus from becoming an alien. They band together to save the day!

This was one of the most unique and incredible alien stories I've ever watched. The main alien, named Christopher Johnson, displays such a human personality as does his son (who was pretty darn cute!) and so you really have this strange emotional connection to him. You see these aliens being shot and killed and then dissected for experiments. There is this haunting scene where they "abort" the alien baby eggs and then burn down the building they are housed and you really just despise the human race. But that's the point of the movie, to pull for the aliens. I was absolutely shocked at the character development of the aliens, they did an amazing job with doing this.

The main character, Wikus is a very complicated character and one of my favorite characters of the year. First of all, Sharlto Copley did a magnificent job at portraying him as this is his very first movie role. He played him so authentically, and we really believed this was a documentary style film (the movie is done in a documentary style, so there is the shaky cam effect). There were times where we really loved him and really was pulling for him. Then there were times where you just hated him. There were a few scenes where he was so selfish and so awful that you wanted to kill him! But that's the beauty of his performance, he acted like a human. He was very real and for that I applaud him.

There were some cliched characters, but they weren't prominent enough to really lose focus on the movie as a whole. There really isn't a lot more I can say about this movie though. I thought the screenplay was very well written, the direction was magnificent, the acting was great, the action was awesome and this movie simply rocks! This is by far one of the most must see movies of summer. It adds such a cool twist to the whole alien genre film and it was a great spin! I really think any fan of movies will enjoy this movie. It's just so fun and so well done.

Go see District 9! You won't regret it!

**WARNING*

This movie is very graphic and does not hold back. It has a lot of "F' bombs, and various other swear words. It is very bloody. There are scenes of fingernails being ripped off, bodies exploding, and much more. Don't take your young kids to see this movie if they can't handle a movie like that.