DISTRICT 9

[treason22]

Director: Neill Blomkamp
Rated: MA
Duration: 112 min
Rating/Score: 8



SYNOPSIS

An alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. Its occupants, derogatively referred to as "prawns", are herded out and confined in the District 9 refugee camp that, over the course of two decades, becomes a squalid and chaotic ghetto. The aliens are segregated from humans, who don't like them much anyway, and a heavy military presence is used to keep them in check. (Starting to sound familiar?)

Multi-National United (MNU), the world's largest munitions corporation, is appointed to conduct the forced eviction of the aliens to District 10, and in charge of this operation is one of its diligent employees, Wikus van der Merwe: a cheerful, kind-of-awkward, kind-of-naive man. In the midst of his duties, he becomes exposed to an alien chemical that starts making him sick, and he comes to realise the cold hard fact that Corporations are Evil and cannot be trusted; instead, Wikus must depend on the aliens for help.

REVIEW

Oddly enough, when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I thought it was going to be funny. It looked like crack; it was a rickroll-ish trailer set up like a documentary about racial tensions, conflict in Africa, "humanitarian disaster" sort of thing -- only to turn out that it's ALIENS! Not that it'd necessarily be any different; the allegory is right there. Animal Farm, anyone?

But then I was later informed that no, District 9 is quite serious business and in fact a really good, powerful movie. Now having watched it, I can agree that I really do like this movie, although I am more or less ambivalent towards the humans vs aliens thing. I am not feeling any great swelling of hatred for my own race just because we are capable of great cruelty and brutality; that's just how we roll. Any cursory glance at human history and the wasabi we can do to our own people, let alone other species, should be indication enough of that. At the same time, we are also capable of compassion, empathy and selflessness (perhaps not often, but it happens).

And the aliens? Of course, I am sympathetic to their plight, but they're not inherently morally superior to us. They're actually a lot like humans, as I thought this was clearly shown in (one of my favourite scenes) the part where humans and aliens alike are betting on the cricket/scorpion(?) fight. That was brilliant. Gambling is the stuff that brings people together. The aliens are also known to violence, given their (rather advanced) weaponry, the Mech Suit (really awesome), and their understandably aggressive behaviour when subjected to horrible living conditions.

Having said that, the aliens are still fantastic and likeable. They remind me of Warcraft characters -- ugly but adorable. Funny how that works. Christopher and his son are very much humanised and come across as more adorable than the rest, but let's not forget that cross-dressing alien in the pink bra (another great scene). I think it has an awesome DO NOT JUDGE ME vibe because the alien just looked so indignant at being confronted by the humans. There were quite a few moments of hilarity in the beginning, but there's also one particular scene which was unintentionally funny only because it was so American Psycho. **SPOILER** After Wikus is told he'll have to wait three years before Christopher can come back and fix him, Wikus goes into a rage and yells "HEY CHRISTOPHER" and whacks him from behind with a metal object. I could amost imagine Hip to be Square playing in the background...

Moving on to the villains, I'm a little uncertain as to how I feel about the two factions -- it was interesting they had both white and black villains (MNU and the Nigerian warlord, respectively). But, and this might just be my Eurocentric worldview showing here, I couldn't help wondering why the Nigerian crew were portrayed as being so backward? **SPOILER** The driving force behind their antagonism in this movie is their superstition, according to a witch doctor, that eating alien body parts will imbue them with alien powers. (As apparently, eating cows and pigs and chickens could likewise give you cow/pig/chicken powers. But that's my judgment talking, so don't take it to heart.) For all I know, this could very well be an accurate portrayal of those warlord/gang communities, as I'm not familiar with the subject, but it's still something that niggles me. On the flipside, sure, we have the Nazi-esque MNU's everloving greed for power and control because they are an Evil Corporation, which is just as negative a depiction (but a copout, in my view). And besides which, the MNU is responsible for more harm than the Nigerians.

In terms of Wikus, I for one thought that Copley's acting was remarkably good. Idiosyncratic, but good. And particularly so for someone who has never acted before. His character, I found, was very human (pun intended) and overall a well-meaning guy. But he's not a hero. (He's a dark knight.) **SPOILER** I didn't think he was completely selfless and pro-alien, because although his actions resulted in helping Christopher, it was because his interests in self-preservation were completely dependent on Christopher. He was kind of a dick towards the aliens pre-transformation, although that would have been from MNU propaganda and indoctrination and whatnot. At the end, he Does the Right Thing by helping Christopher and his son escape, but primarily because he knew it was over for his part, and he wasn't vindictive enough to deny Christopher his freedom just because he personally couldn't succeed. That point was his most admirable moment.

Pseudo-intellectual discussion aside, the rest of the film was nicely made. They went for realism with the mockumentary style and gritty shots and actual slum houses, and they didn't disappoint. The plot was simple yet effective, and not burdened with useless or illogical bits. There was a good mix of both action and drama. Finally, the special effects were really good. Not strictly the CGI, but also the makeup and prop things, like the yucky skin grafts and oozy liquids and all that. Real icky.

Bottom line: I don't think I'd even call this a scifi movie per se as it's more of a "symbolism" movie in a scifi context, but it's nonetheless very engaging.

[sanguinivore]

apparently this is the year of smart scifi

[Spastic01]

Only a little bit of scifi....

[treason22]

with the exception of Transformers