Movie Review: District 9
The lowdown: DISTRICT 9 is one of the most technologically accomplished, emotionally gripping and morally compelling films of the year; within its science fiction genre, it’s an amazing piece of work and my favorite sci-fi since CHILDREN OF MEN. Neill Blomkamp, a South African director, has brought us a quick-moving yet profound twist on the alien genre; here, the question is not “what will the aliens do to us?” but rather, “what will we do to them?”
20 years ago, aliens came to Johannesburg, South Africa. Their spaceship hovered there for ages; finally, we cut our way in, and found the aliens there, living in desperate squalor. They were soon relocated to a temporary shelter camp nearby, then to a more permanent installation, called District 9. Now the aliens’ technology is being reverse engineered as the vaguely crustacean visitors themselves fight over scraps in a desperate slum. A Blackwater-type company has been hired to care for the aliens, which amounts to conducting brutal experiments on the “prawns” in an effort to make their advanced weaponry work with human hands, while at the same time planning a mass relocation of the aliens to a new concentration camp.
The setting alone makes for fantastic cinema; the aliens suffer in the context of African suffering, the legacy of apartheid, Nigerian gangsters and a South Africa determined to make a tidy showing of things to prove they are more than a “2nd World” nation. Add to that the layers of shady dealings by outsourced agencies, as well as the spectacular indifference of administrators of social services, and DISTRICT 9 has about a dozen contemporary issues to choose from without even mentioning extraterrestrials.
The pencil-pusher in charge of the latest forced migration of the aliens is Wikus van der Merwe, who is so weasely and nebbish that his character seems beyond protagonism, let alone redemption. And yet, he is the centerpiece – as one house is raided Wikus is infected with an alien virus, and begins to change. The movie changes along with it, mutating from thought questions about science fiction to action, horror and mayhem (seemingly out of MechWarrior). There are no undue pauses, no moments where the filmmaking seems uncertain. It is acted well and the effects are solid. The lesson — Wikus discovers what it means to be humane even as he ceases to be human — is vital and interesting.
Overall, DISTRICT 9 is an accomplished piece of science fiction cinema, and it deserves to take its place along with BLADE RUNNER, CHILDREN OF MEN and other paradigm-shifting films. It is the best film of 2009 thus far.
Posted on August 13, 2009, in Pop Culture. Bookmark the permalink. 43 Comments.
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Sounds interesting. I hope it’s more like Blade Runner, which I loved. I found Children of Men a bit distasteful and ultimately dissatisfying.
I’m really looking forward to this. Gotta say, though, I watched Blade Runner about 10 years ago, didn’t care for it at all. I wondered what everyone else was seeing.
So about a year ago, I watched the new improved ultimate Director’s version, and… still thought it wasn’t anything special.
Wow, better than Star Trek or Harry Potter?
Your telling of the story is a lot different than what I was expecting, based on the limited previews. (I was sort of expecting another Transformers.)
I was already excited for this one just based on the previews and early reviews, but you saying it’s as good as Children of Men just made me more anxious to see it.
I’m very excited by the previews except for one thing—and maybe you can quell my fear: How much does the “alien dna” pseudo-science play into the story? I find that kind of explanation for things to be so dissastifying because it is soooo implausible. I’m happy to suspend disbelief to some degree, but a smart movie (I think) should always be smart.
Ditto on Children of Men MCQ. It was one of the more overrated movies of the last while.
What’s nice about this movie is it’s cheaply made (40 mil which today is nothing) yet looks great (from what I’ve seen). The price means it’ll probably make a profit no matter what (the Robert Rodriguez school of film making albeit with a very different style) but can be risky and questioning in a way most blockbusters like Transformers aren’t.
I want to see this.
Re: Blade Runner — I saw it again recently and while it certainly is influential I didn’t think it really held up all that well.
FHL, better than either.
BrianJ, re: alien DNA, not much explanation is given. He has an open wound and starts mutating from there.
Re: Children of Men, it’s true that it’s no Stranger Than Fiction!
SG,
How far does this stray into the horror genre? Will my wife be able to sleep at night if I take her to it?
Great review, SG. Like ARJ, I wonder about the horror and gore aspects, since such isn’t my cup of tea.
That’s awesome. Few things can get ridiculous as quickly as can technobabble.
not really much horror. Lots of goo as aliens go boom and humans asplode.
#11: That goes without saying.
The reviews that I’ve seen on this have all been exceptionally positive.
BrianJ, you only get annoyed by DNA explanations that don’t make any sense because you’re a biologist. For the non-biologists in the audience (i.e. essentially the whole audience) movie world biology usually sounds plausible. Just like really bad physics explanations sound fine to me but annoy the hell out of Clark. So I’m pretty forgiving of bad biology if the movie surrounding it is good. When the movie sucks, though, like Outbreak which I saw recently, I’ll scoff away. Basically what I’m saying is that science nerds shouldn’t let implausible science ruin the movie for them. If most of the audience will buy it, that’s good enough.
Actually bad biological or chemical technobabble make me wince as much as everything being bulletproof in the movieS.
Lots of swearing in it?
Tom: I get annoyed when a) the plot focuses entirely on a very stupid techno-explanation or b) when the explanation gets very detailed but that detail is stupid and unnecessary.
Unfortunately, it sounds like District 9 relies on the idea of a man being transformed into an alien by a virus. I think that’ll bug.
Also, I was thinking about how this movie changes the paradigm of alien movies:
It’s too bad Card’s Ender’s Game can never get off the ground, or else we’d already have enjoyed the sequel and explored this subject (to some degree) in Speaker for the Dead.
For the record I love hard sci-fi in which “technobable” is featured front and foremost. I just demand it be plausible.
Susan, some swearing but it all sounds like phoooooock.
Saw the movie over the weekend, and liked it. There are a few holes in the plot large enough to drive the mothership through. But at the time, I was so impressed with the plot twists, visuals, and acting, that I didn’t notice. It was only later that I thought about it and realized the story didn’t hold together as well as it could have if a few things were better explained. (Or perhaps some key scenes that might have answered some questions were edited out.)
That said, I enjoyed it enough that I will gladly see the sequel.
I’d be surprised if we didn’t get a District 10 in the next year or two.
I really liked the movie. I was surprised by some critics (Ebert, Snider) wanting the documentary and social commentary to continue through the second half. I was glad they mostly abandoned that premise and got on with the action.
Saw the movie last night and thought it was amazing! I found it interesting how they captured the brutality of african gangs. I also thought the actions scenes were disturbingly appropriate. A few plot holes, but nothing that detracted from the movie.
They obviously set the sequel up very deliberately.
Uh {cough} yeah. Like a bludgeon.
Saw it yesterday. Here’s my review:
Transformers + interesting premise – Megan Fox + multiple uses of the word “phooock” = District 9
So if you liked Transformers then you’ll love District 9!
Actually, word is that they’re not planning a sequel.
Also, that is a terrible, terrible review, Brian.
sigh…
Super: good, then my review is what the movie deserves.
Well, not quite. Like “Transformers,” “District 9″ wasn’t terrible.
As for my review, I made one mistake: I can’t guarantee that someone who liked “Transformers” will also like “District 9″ because Megan Fox was the reason a lot of people liked “Transformers”. I apologize to anyone affected by this error.
A review that equates the cinematic quality of this film with that of Transformers is a statement about one thing and one thing only: the reviewer.
Then I guess District 9 will serve as a good litmus test. If you are the type of person who considers it to be a terrible movie, roughly in the same league as Transformers, then do not pass go, proceed directly to shooting yourself in the head.
Um, we have few enough commenters as it is, SG.
fair point.
Perhaps with one of the hundreds of unused, ultra-powerful weapons you have sitting around while you inexplicably starve to death and watch your friends and family get murdered?
I thought the idea was that most of the aliens were more akin to mindless drones. The main character was the exception.
I also didn’t mind the inferences one had to make to rationalize why the aliens would become willingly be defenseless. Things started off kosher then just got progressively worse over 20 years and big uprisings would be severely punished with a severe threat of genocide. Parallels some extreme positions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sorry, didn’t blow me away. The beginning is fun, with all sorts of social issues being satirized, almost like cameo appearances of ideas, but I didn’t feel much was done with them beyond the first act. In the second act, we shift gears as monster becomes human and human becomes monster: figuratively, dramatically and literally! I like it. Very clever. Very cute. But Roger Ebert read my mind about the finale and the film overall, “the third act is disappointing, involving standard shoot-out action…Despite its creativity, the movie remains space opera and avoids the higher realms of science-fiction.â€
Haven’t seen it yet. (It’s hard for me to make it out to the movies now days) I’m not surprised about the 3rd act. It’s really difficult for most writers and directors to pull off a successful third act. Still, if only relative to Transformers and G I Joe it’s nice for there to be something different. The quality of big blockbusters has sort of died (other than last year’s Dark Knight) It seems like they are all barely one step up from Saturday morning cartoons aimed at 13 year olds.
Saw it tonight. Liked it.
I think those who saw it late were probably the victims of its hype. It was a very well executed and thought-out science fiction movie. It wasn’t Shakespeare.
I thought the dynamic of the main character was pretty fascinating.
No. Transformers was awful. Should have been called awkward teen meets Megan Fox and somehow gets involved while robots make jokes that embarrass me for being present. District 9 had a great premise, but I did not like it. It was not a virus that changed him, unless the alien ships run on viruses that change all life into aliens for some reason. It would be like throwing motor oil on a dog and it becomes a person. Just stupid. I also did not like that the alien was the only character I felt any sympathy for. Though I suppose the fact that the main character was such scum in the beginning did make his change to a good person more interesting. I just do not care to watch torture and pain for 2 hours.
I rented this movie last night, and was compelled by it to scour the internet just to see if others felt about it as I did.
I want those 2 hours of my life back. This was the single worst movie I have sat thru in recent memory. They explain NOTHING about anything. There is not a single thing about the movie that makes any sense. I realize there is certain dramatic licence, and it is a scifi movie, but come on. You have to make it somewhat plausable, atleast from within the context of the movie.
How do humans and aliens understand each other without either speaking the others language?
The aliens are sitting on a stockpile of weapons that only they can use, but dont for some reason, meanwhile the government and impoverished 3rd world residents take advantage of them and randomly kill them for no reason.
Why did they land here in the first place? The mothership was apparently operational the whole time… The aliens come here, somehow get stuck, they want to leave, humans dont want them on this planet, but wont let them leave, build them a shanty community in the desert.
There is scenes with aliens running about local human communities, but the next scene is explaining how all the aliens are locked in district 9 and cant escape thru the flimsy chain link fence even with a pile of superpowerful alien weapons that seem to have unlimited ammo and can blast thru a hardened secret government building in one shot.
The aliens are intelligent enough to make such technology, but trade a super mech robot thing for 100 cans of cat food. They somehow dont know that they can just destroy every human that stands in their way.
The ‘fluid’ that fuels their space craft is somehow also a bio-virus that transforms humans into aliens.
I mean- the list goes on and on. (for about 2 hours)
This was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I expected a better from previous reviews. Obviously there were a lot of Australian actors as their accent came thru all the time. Some of the acting was terrible, ie wifey and very cliche all the way thru. Honestly how can aliens throw men half way over a football court and then allow themselves to get taken in my men later in the movie and thrown into a concentraion camp. Aliens would kick human arse, they are obviously stronger and bigger, this just doesn’t add up. And oh my god, why are they into animal meat and never chomped a human I mean come on. Also when the govnt evicted the aliens from their hometown how come we only see a few of them evicting in the movie, you would see swams of agents all over the camp, espcially that there were supposedly one million of the aliens there….huge holes all the way thru. I said throughout this movie “what a load of shit, badly executed, poor acting, with a couple of exceptions, reasonable special effects, bad story line and basically it went nowhere. Don’t see it.
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