 From time immemorial, the three commandments of most alien movies are: 1) Aliens shall invade thy planet 2) Aliens shall plunder and kill 3) Hero and fellow humans will find a way to defeat aliens or die trying. District 9, however, is a refreshing take on the alien movie: a bloody war-zone mockumentary, part political allegory, part mecha fantasy, and reverses commandment two. In place of 'What are they going to do to us?' it asks 'What would we do to them?'
Set in South Africa, the aliens have been on earth for 20 years already at the start of District 9, they're extracted from their broken-down mothership and deposited in a housing slum on the outskirts of Johannesburg that gives the film its name. The housing slum becomes home to the tall, skinny aliens with insect like faces and bodies that seem to combine biological and mechanical features and are viewed by the South Africans with suspicion and hostility.
As the movie begins, a wave of violent alien unrest has prompted people to crave even greater distance from the aliens, and a forced relocation of all alien residents to a Guantánamo-style tent city known as District 10 has become law. Enter Multi-National United, a private military contractor that places the relocation in the hands of one Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a not very bright corporate man who also happens to be married to the boss's daughter. Added to the mix, are Nigerian gangsters, who (inside the boundaries of District 9 itself) exploit the pawns by charging them exorbitant prices for black-market goods and an alien Christopher Johnson (Jacon Cope) who along with his son wants to return to his planet by any means necessary.
 District 9 is never better than in its first 20 minutes, as first time director Blomkamp along with cinematographer Trent Opaloch maps out the film's - in dreary brown tones-social and economic realities via an assortment of news reports, corporate videos, and CCTV cameras.
As it progresses, District 9 uncovers a horrific program of medical experimentation that wants to become a genocide agenda of corporate greed. But once a terrible accident befalls Wikus, the film falls from the grace of speculative fiction and into cliché zombie land and then when Johnson becomes Wikus' protector; their relationship turns District 9, in its final act, into a buddy picture/escape-action-chase movie full of explosions, guns and bloody mayhem.
District 9 was produced, with help of Peter Jackson, who once upon a time was the king of quirky low budget horror films (Bad Taste, Braindead anyone?) and his influence shows as District 9 is pumped up with action, computer effects and lots of gore - which are all well executed by the way - to progress the story.
The problem is that District 9 doesn't really go anywhere. It abandons the idea of exploring the dynamics of social upheaval and we are instead treated to yet another take on the evils of corporatism. According to Blomkamp, "the film would become too serious and oppressive and that it 'wouldn't be entertaining on a popcorn level. "
 The saving grace of District 9 is the portrayal of Wikus by Sharlto Copley, his character's arc from corporate bimbo to human and beyond is the very core of the film, of how a member of a socially dominant group becomes aware of the severe injustice that keeps him in his place and the others, his "inferiors," in theirs. The cost he pays for this knowledge is severe, as it must be, given the dreadfulness of the system. It suggests that sometimes the only way to become fully human is to be completely alienated.
-- Ali Sultan
*YUCK
**WHATEVER
***GOOD
****SUPER
*****AWESOME |
