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"District 9" is one of those movies that comes to the screen out of the blue with no name actors and no real appeal except in this case it is produced by Peter Jackson. That alone seems to be enough to throw certain people into a frenzy and have them proclaiming the movie to be the best sci fi movie ever made. I disagree.
The film takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa where a huge space ship has parked itself above the city. Nothing happens for a long time so finally the humans go up and take a look. They find a group of starving aliens on board. They bring them back to earth and take care of them but eventually tire of them. Finally they round them up and place them in a holding camp called District 9.
Now they want to move them again to District 10 but they have to evict them to do this. Wilkus Van De Merwe (Sharito Copley) is chosen to head up this action. He and several armed policemen go to the settlement to get this started but while trying to evict an alien Wilkus gets sprayed with something that begins to turn him into an alien. What happens to him makes up the core of the movie.
Copley plays Wilkus as an everyman forced into being more heroic than he is. When his own people turn on him he has to rely on the aliens for assistance. The growth of his acceptance of these creatures is interesting to a minor degree.
The aliens themselves look like creatures from the black lagoon, or fugitives from "Pirates of the Caribbean." There's nothing very inventive in how they look or how they act. The special effects are okay but nothing to bowl you over.
There is of course the underlying comparison to Apartheid but that point is made quickly and loses its effectiveness. The fight between the humans and the aliens goes on and on and on with Wilkus caught in the middle. It all just gets boring.
The film is rated R for profanity and violence.
At times the film is comedic and at other times it is very dramatic which leaves the audience not knowing whether to laugh out loud or just absorb it all. Maybe there is some hidden meaning that escaped me and some hidden entertainment I never saw.
Overall I found the film to be only passable entertainment. Copley is a pretty good actor and he makes you believe his character is actually turning into an alien, but it sure does take a long time.
Others seem to find more enjoyment here than I did. I was bored for most of the time I was viewing it.
I scored "District 9" a restricted 5 out of 10.
Jackie K Cooper
www.jackiekcooper.com
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Thankfully I saw the movie before reading this blog!! There needs to be a spolier alert at the top of this post. Overall I was pleased with District 9. The main character did a great job in portraying a man caught in between two worlds. I liked the documentary syle of the film combined with great special effects.
I honestly don't know what movie you were watching.
The effects were incredible. The fluid movement of the aliens alone was groundbreaking.
The plot was based around the concept of Copley turning into an alien, so to say that it bothered you that they spent so much time is like saying that Private Ryan bothered you because they spent so much time on WWII.
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My remarks about the length of time it took for him to transform had nothing to do with screen time spent on it but rather how long in the script it took for the transformation to take place. It seemed to start out at a fast pace but then almost nothing happened in this regard until the end of the film.
I read all the hype about this movie (some saying it was one of the best sci-fi movies in a long time), and I decided to see it even though I'm not big on going to movies with a lot of gore. My imagination was teased by some bloggers that claimed that at least the first half of the movie was humorous. In no way did I find any of it humorous. The whole cat food scenario (which has been critiqued extensively) wasn't funny or humorous in my opinion. The caricaturing of Wilkus wasn't funny or humorous. I have a fully functioning sense of humor but found slim to none of it in this movie.
Another point where I disagreed with the critics was in Copely's performance. I thought it the main redeeming feature of the movie. I thought he did the best he could with the character, and would pay to see him act again.
I was very disappointed by the film in general and am a bit annoyed at myself that I believed the critical reviews.
I agree, there were long parts that were simply boring.
The secret to D9 is to leave your expectations at the ticket counter. The FX was a true test to basic, "none geek" sci-x filmmaking. The story-line value, is in its observations, the role of the senses. Ask yourself the timeline of the plot, and how "we were able" to understand "their" ailien words and that the movie had only one Captain left with his most curious son .The son taught us we are "alike" on the surface and a bond can be established and its a place to start with cultural differences. it is a true understanding in anthropology in as much as alturism as a belief system has its own time-line based on false expectations. That the captain & son keep looking for solutions to exit his people from a community that judged them by their "contained" surviual set skills. And the reality to those of you who have not travelled to countries where "war-lords and pirates control the space between law and order...well its as real as it gets. And lets not forget he who controls the technology in weapons controls the arms sales of the world. And is the cat-food more a metaphore a reflection of a society surving by addictions?, cause & effect? That a needed fuel source is contained in the trash heaps of the galaxies? I left D-9 wondering, Is it a universal paradox?...4-stars * * * * I remain, VR+, Jim.
I just saw it yesterday and thought is was wonderful...the metaphors and allegories were obvious and touched me as indicative of our human plight...it reminded me of man's inhumanity to man on the scale of Blood Diamonds and Lord of War, two other films that touched me in the same way.
Also, the lead, he was very very believeable as an affable example of the peter principle thrust into a heroic situation...well acted. I find this movie not be have been about the special effects, although they were good and necessary for us sci fi buffs, but about the story of conflict, right verses wrong, disenfranchised vs the masters, etc. All though history persecuted people have fought their captors, eventually enduring and uplifting their progeny to a better life....ah...the start of the sequel perhaps...
Or a prequel.
District 9 is a great movie. The mellow beginning helps to create the tension later as the action builds.
In my mind, the movie removes the mask from the corporate government complex in an effective way. I mean, we are all used to corporations being behind the 'evil' in sci fi films, but this movie got me to feel the anger about it like I haven't in a while.
Believe me, if I were the main character of 'District 9' I would not not have been so kind to the people who knowingly caused all that suffering whether they were Nigerians or corporate suits and the mercenaries who worked for them.
Wow! Got mod-ed out for mentioning an opposing review from another HP contributor?
Really?
I liked will men aker s review better. Tried to re-post my comment from there, got sent to Distict 10!
Was it something I said, honey?
I loved District 9. Great movie!
Several others posted about qualities in the movie which the reviewer missed. I'll add that I enjoyed the humor of Wikus being desperately out of his element.
Was that a review or a Cliff Notes synopsis of the whole movie? Spoiler!
Read Will Menakers review to get an idea how to write one!
Having not given away the gist of the story in the previews, I took my girlfriend and my son to see the film. Keep in mind that I'm 56, and have seen the gammut of SciFi since the late 50's, and have watched the evolution run back and forth between action and message. I didn't know what to expect, and sat with an open mind. Very soon into the film I 'got' it. And from that moment on I was even more appreciative of the story it told, and the message it was giving. I was, to say the least, quite impressed. The other two were expecting something along the line of Independance Day or Alien, and I was doing my best after the film to explain why it was such a great story and whyI was so impressed with it. Oh well, I tried! There are those who either won't 'get it' or like it expecting something else, but for those who do, the trip to the theater will be well worth it.
This film should be made available to every civics class in high school and college.
Just sayin'
This review is chock full of spoilers, glad I saw the movie first. At its core the story is a pretty basic (its not the Godfather). But this is not a cookie cutter movie and that is something to be commended. The characters and the world in which they inhabited was rich and kept me interested from start to finish. Definitely not boring. I often think the believability of a film is a key to an enjoyable experience. When films like (I'll pick one out of nowhere) Armageddon, insult the audience with with a crazy world riddled with shenanigans, its hard to feel at comfort with the material. With this film, I actually felt like I was immersed in an alien slum/refugee camp. Not saying that the world was 100 percent believable (what movie is), but I didn't feel insulted. The history and nuances were there, along with good set design. The special effects were adequate to the story telling process. I don't know what the reviewer is talking about here. If you have seen the trailer, then you know, that's the quality through out. Two thumbs up from my perspective, which is looking at my left and right hands doing the thumbs up gesture. Just sayin'.
I'm sort of amazed that you missed the deeper metaphors in "District 9." It isn't only about apartheid. Also, I did not think of this movie as a Peter Jackson film. That would be like calling "Lovely Bones" a Steven Spielberg film (he's producing it).
Spoilers & a review that does indeed miss the point.
I thought D9 was a brilliant movie dealing with aliens. It was creative and did not take from other movies like AlienNation or V. I think the "critic" lacks imagination.
District 9 is a flawed film as someone else mentioned, but not for any of the reasons you mentioned. I found the depiction of the "Nigerian gangs" a bit much--I wondered why the Nigerians were being villanized like that in such a way, then someone reminded me of the riots between the two groups a while ago.
Other than that, the film is great. Your review didn't really do anything but spoil most of the movie for me--and for someone who gave Transformers and Wolverine higher marks--you really shouldn't be the one to talk about 'boring' films.
The Nigerians are a bit of an inside joke. For South Africans. We have the same situation in SA with Nigerians that Americans have with Mexicans.
Although I havent seen the film yet, I can only imagine that the Nigerian gangs plays off the reputation Nigerian nationals have for running drug syndicates.
I would also venture that the deliberate villainisation of Nigerians plays off the xenophobia displayed towards all foreign nationals in SA at present. If you recall about a year ago we had some horrendous incidents of xenophobic violence against foreign nationals, mostly Somalis and Zimbabweans. Which is despicable, given SA's history.
Much like the Zionist Jews in Israel, the victims have become the aggressors here in SA too. What is it about human nature?
I share the same sentiments too, but after reading the interview with the director about his reasoning behind using the Nigerians as the villains, I sort of understood why the film was shaped that way. It just sucks because yet again the overwhelming public has another negative image to characterize Nigerians against. I'm not saying that those gangs don't exist, and that they don't cause problems, but maybe he went overboard with the whole "eating aliens for juju" thing...
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