[Movie Review] District 9, 2009

This review will contain spoilers, but I'll point them out when they are coming up.

The basic story to District 9 that a spaceship appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. The ship is drilled into and over a million aliens are found, malnourished and leaderless. The aliens are brought down to earth and kept in a camp, called District 9. This was meant to be temporary, however soon became permanent. Crime and poverty become rampant and District 9 turns into a slum. The aliens are often referred to as "prawns" due to their appearance. Multinational United (MNU) are placed in charge, and the main character is an employee, called Wikus van de Merwe. The plan is to move the aliens to a more permanent home, called District 10, and this is pretty much when things start to go off.

The main problem with this movie is that you have to suspend your disbelief a hell of a lot. If you totally immerse yourself in this world, then maybe you can ignore all the little things. However for me, this is supposed to be a representation of what might happen if aliens landed on Earth, so I'm going to treat it by my opinion of Earth standards. If you are able to avoid these things, then you are a better person than me.

• The aliens have red blood
• The aliens walk on their back legs
• The aliens can understand English
• The aliens have mannerisms similar to humans
• The aliens have a similar skeletal and organ structure to humans

Now this might not seem like anything unbelievable, but what you have to remember is that these are aliens. These aliens never had contact with humans before, yet they have all these similarities. It's strikes me a lot more that the writers of this movie did not want to make the aliens seem too far removed from humans as it would be difficult to relate to. This reveals another problem though, the message of the movie. The movie is set in South Africa, and there are quite obvious nods towards the Apartheid. This is why I think the aliens were made to seem more human, as it would be difficult to empathise with them if they were totally removed from our concept of humans.

If the film tried to remove it's message, then they could have made the aliens totally removed, and then it would have been interesting. For example, why, when an alien gets mad, would they lash out and punch a wall? That is a human mannerism, so why would aliens have that? It's one thing that bothered me throughout the entire movie. The aliens are basically humans with a different exterior.

*SPOILERS START*

So, what happens is Wikus gets infected, so to speak, and is gradually turning into an alien. This concept, on the whole, I like a lot. And to be honest, it's one part that is done pretty well. The actor who plays Wikus is really very good in it, and is totally believable.

Wikus and the main alien in this story end up storming MNU in order to get a small vial of fluid that Wikus confiscated earlier. This allows the alien to fly a spaceship that is under his shack. He can then get back into the mothership, pick all the aliens up and fly back home. He also says that he can cure Wikus with the technology on the ship. So (without explanation as to how they got there) Wikus and the alien run up to the building and use alien weaponry to storm it. With relative ease they get down to the secret base and get the vial. The alien then makes a quick bomb and they escape back to District 9.

There really is no explanation as to how nobody spotted an alien and a half man/half alien running down the street with massive alien guns as they approached MNU. It's really quite difficult to grasp the idea that they got there with no problems. At this point, Wikus is the most wanted man in the world, so everybody is on high alert.

In the climax, Wikus is on his knees at the mercy of the main bad army guy. If you ask me, the ending would have been a lot better if Wikus was shot and killed. He would have been like an anti-hero, or a martyr, and the message would have been a lot stronger. However they went for the Hollywood ending were aliens ambush the army guy and tear him to bits.

There is an interview with Wikus' wife at the end, and she holds up a rose sculpted from metal. Apparently it was found outside a friend of hers house, and she believes it to be from Wikus. The film then cuts to the image of an alien sculpting this rose from scrap metal. So Wikus fully turned into an alien. Great. Wow. Curtains.

*SPOILERS END*

This film has had a lot of anticipation and I know that a lot of people are going to disagree with what I'm saying here. I just, didn't like the movie. It disappointed me quite a lot.

So I'm giving the movie 5/10. The concept is a lot better than the execution in this movie. I love the idea that the aliens don't land on one of the major cities like New York or London. It's a really cool idea that aliens land, and we have no idea what to do. However this movie suffers from Hollywood syndrome. It is over-dramatic and unrealistic at times. The ending should have been bittersweet, however instead it was predictable and unsatisfying.

The movie is very visually pleasing however. The aliens look like they fit into their surroundings. Very rarely is it noticeable that they are CGI. Whenever somebody gets killed by an alien weapon, it looks really really cool. They get like, obliterated. And when the aliens attack someone, that also looks cool and realistic.

I'm giving this movie 5/10. I imagine this might be an unpopular belief, but it's how I feel. It's a wasted opportunity to make a really excellent movie.

Also, the reason I didn't refer to the real alien by his actual name is because it's so stupid. His name is Christopher Johnson. Apparently he was given this name by MNU, but this must mean that they've assigned names to all 1.8 million aliens in District 9, which I somehow doubt. I think realistically they would just assign them a number or a code or something.

Anyway, that's just me rambling. The movie gets 5 aliens out of 10.



- Simon