‘District 9′ Review

Release Date: 8/14/09

 

District 9, written and directed by first time feature film director Neil Blomkamp and produced by Oscar winning director Peter Jackson, is an action packed documentary style sci-fi thriller.  It adds another fantastic sci-fi film to the summer that has already produced Star Trek and Moon.  District 9 shows that there is still some inventiveness left in the genre and Blomkamp successfully creates a visually stunning spectacle.  The story is good but the visual effects and the bloody action sequences will blow you away.  District 9 just may be the most entertaining film of the summer.

 

 

The story takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa.  It’s been 28 years since aliens have made first contact, but the aliens were treated as refugees and the government of South Africa set up a makeshift home in District 9 as politicians and world leaders debated how to handle the situation.  As the humans begin to grow wary of the unwelcome intruders, a private company called Multi-National United (MNU) is assigned the task of controlling the aliens.  But MNU is less interested in the aliens’ welfare than attempting to understand how their weaponry works.  Should they manage to make that breakthrough, they will receive tremendous profits to fund their research. Unfortunately, the highly advanced weaponry requires alien DNA in order to be activated.  When MNU field operative Wikus van der Merwe, played by newcomer Sharlto Copley, is exposed to biotechnology that causes his DNA to mutate, the tensions between the aliens and the humans intensifies. Wikus is the key to unlocking the alien’s technology, and he quickly becomes the most wanted man on the planet.

 

District 9 does a lot of things very well.  It is a completely original sci-fi film, but still manages to be entertaining throughout.  The action is top notch, and the special effects are some of the most realistic I have ever seen on screen.  This definitely helps for you to get lost in the world of District 9 and that’s what I really loved most about it.  The world they were portraying was so believable it’s almost scary thinking that this could really happen if extraterrestrials ever landed on Earth.  The art direction was surprisingly very high quality.  The story is also interesting while at times it is very dreary, Blomkamp throws in some humorous moments of the lead actor interacting with the aliens which lightens the mood.

 

 

In the beginning I was skeptical because I wasn’t really sure where the story was going, and there isn’t much back-story at all.  We are just thrown right into the aliens being on screen, which was surprising.  I must say that the first 30 minutes just wasn’t doing it for me and I was having trouble getting into the story.  They could have developed the characters more or even showed more documentary footage before going further into the plot.  When the story finally develops clearly we get a sense of what is going to follow, and what follows in the 2^nd half is fast paced edge of your seat madness.  D9 starts to get more and more violent as it goes on and seeing some of the futuristic weapons explode people into nothing I was having a hell of a time in my seat.

 

Sharlto Copley was kind of frustrating in the beginning of the film and I didn’t know if he could really carry the film as the lead actor, but in the end I must say he gives an extraordinary performance.  Things go bad for his character and he slowly falls apart mentally and physically.  Watching his breakdown you can’t help but to fell sorry for him, and to root for him in the end.  Blomkamp also does an amazing job of making you feel for the aliens.  The interaction between Copley and the main alien called Christopher Johnson was done very well.  It must be hard to make an audience feel for a computer animated alien and just like Spielberg in E.T.  Blomkamp gets the job done.

 

 

Blomkamp definitely makes a name for himself with District 9, supplying all the goods it takes to make a thriving summer action flick.  Transformers 2 and Wolverine should take notes on this film.  Go check out what D9 is all about and you will be sure to be fully satisfied in the end.

 

The secret of D9 is…that it just got stamped!!

 

MADE!!!

 

IMDB: 9.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Moviewiseguys: 8.5/10