District 9(2009)
Surprisingly original premise coupled with some documentary style filming techniques and perfectly executed animations make District 9 a refreshing contribution to stagnated for quite a while Sci-Fi genre. Neill Blomkamp a young (29) director places the action of District 9 in his native South Africa making it speak quite vividly abut prejudice and discrimination that can be brought upon of any group of ...aliens coming to earth without invitation. Especially when their intentions are not hostile or educational, but instead they turn out to be just a bunch of defenceless malnourished wimps that humans do not quite know what to do with.
The aliens make their emergency landing above the city of Johannesburg itself. After landing, perhaps because of malfunction, their command module disconnects from the mother ship making their return home impossible. Days go by and nothing happens, the huge ship just hangs motionless in the sky over the city. A Multinational United (MNU) makes a decision to cut a hole in the ship to explore the interior. A great number of ill appearing passive aliens are transported down using helicopters and placed in ghetto style fenced area called District 9. Years go by, the aliens reproduce, they turn out to be quite messy and cause problems. Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) an MNU operative is chosen as a leader of operation and to serve eviction notices to the aliens while ghetto relocation outside of the city limits is carried out. The job is quite dirty and while on duty Wikus is infected by DNA changing virus, which slowly transforms him into an alien. In consequence, he is the only one who can activate the alien weapons found on their ship. Top MNU officials: MNU CEO (William Allen Young) Wicus’s father in law MNU director (Louis Minnaar) and others illegally work on reverse engineering the alien weapons. When they find out Wikus is able to use the alien weapons they want kill and dissect him for a chance to uncover his DNA secret. Wikus must run for his life and becomes the most wanted person on earth. The only place he can now hide in is District 9.
The documentary style of the film beginning reassembles somewhat camerawork seen in another not so splendid Sci-Fi work Cloverfield but far less confusing and therefore making a lot more sense. Many parts are filmed in black and white with colour sections washed out to induce grim look and mood. Special effects are superb except maybe the spaceship itself, which I feel lacked the originality and can be easily compared to the ones found in other Sci-Fi movies. The aliens themselves and their animations, on the other hand look superb and impossibly believable. They blend with the real environment so well that one can easily confuse the whole thing with reality. In fact, my wife who is not very much into Sci-Fi altogether and whom I talked into seeing the movie, for a while seriously thought the whole thing was real.
District 9 shakes the audience with violence uncovering xenophobia and segregation especially very drastic cases of them so apparent throughout the history of South Africa, but as we all know not only. So, the violence in this case does not feel out of place when aliens nick named “prawns” after their looks are mistreated and brutally beaten just because they are different. Some of the “prawns” explode into pieces flying all over the screen when hit by various weapons. One of the very graphically drastic scenes shows Wikus forced to test an alien weapon, first on a dead pig and then on very confused defenceless alien. Prepare to be moved down to your core.
Sharlto Copley as Wikus van der Merwe feels remarkably different from most mainstream Hollywood actors, which perhaps can be attributed in part to the documentary style filming in the good portion of the movie. He is occasionally funny providing the audience with much needed breaks throughout very tense action packed movie flow. One down side of his character (but not only) is the curse language overuse prevalent throughout the movie. English language does not have rich vocabulary when it comes to swear words so it becomes a bit repetitive when you continuously listen to the same omnipresent enormously overused f-word. When you leave the theatre, after seeing District 9 prepare yourself to have this word stuck to you head for quite a while.
Original premise which by my guess will be expanded upon by other film makers, totally believable alien animation perfectly blended into real world and breath taking action, make this movie very much worth to see by anyone who does not mind some curse language and violence.
(District 9 was released in August 2009)
A.N. (2009)