District 9 (2009) - Film Review
Peter Jackson, Neill Blomkamp Redefine the Science Fiction Film
Aug 15, 2009
District 9, a product of WingNut Films and TriStar Pictures, opened in theaters last Friday, August 14, 2009. It is the first science fiction film in a long time to warrant the audience buzz it is receiving.
Neill Blomkamp, the South African-born would-be director of Halo, makes his feature film directorial debut at the helm of District 9. In doing so, he meritoriously earns a spot amongst his colleagues. District 9 is a finely-woven story that meaningfully brings the science-fiction genre into the 21st century.
Blomkamp Makes the Unbelievable Convincing
District 9 is the beloved offspring of the six-minute film, Alive in Joberg, which was also directed by Blomkamp and released in 2005. Borrowing from the short film's theme of alien oppression in Johannesburg, South Africa, District 9 explores one man's forced journey from racial intolerance (or, in this case, interspecies intolerance) to acceptance, understanding, and, eventually, friendship.
At the story's opening, the mysterious aliens have been present on Earth for two decades. No one knows where they came from or why they came, the facts being only that their spaceship stalled over Johannesburg and the aliens were not able to fix it. If one can accept the premise that the million plus insect-like aliens (derogatorily called "prawns"), who have the advanced technology necessary to construct high-tech weaponry and a massive spaceship, are somehow not be able to jumpstart said spaceship, then he or she will have no problems accepting and enjoying the events that follow.
The aliens are plucked from their ship. Humans, being the intolerant lot they often can be, segregate the aliens from the rest of Johannesburg. They force the aliens to live in District 9, a slum created, owned, and patrolled by an all-business-no-heart corporation, Multi-National United (MNU). It quickly becomes evident that MNU, the second largest weapons manufacturer, is solely interested in learning the secrets of the aliens' technology, which only responds to alien DNA.
Wikus van der Merwe - the Name of a Hero?
District 9's focal character, Wikus van der Merwe, begins as both a fool and a coward. Played by fresh-face Sharlto Copley, a South African actor who co-produced Alive in Joberg, Wikus serves as a desk-jockey for MNU. Due to public criticism, MNU plans to transport all aliens from District 9 to District 10, a worse slum situated 200 miles outside of Johannesburg. Wikus' father-in-law and MNU top dog charges Wikus with the task of serving the aliens with eviction notices.
To the un-scrutinizing eye, the aliens appear to have devolved from technological savants to poor, repressed, and unsophisticated brutes. The humans who hold them captive in District 9 are no better. Still worse are the Nigerian militants who barter cat food (an intoxicating delicacy to the aliens) for alien technology and feed on the aliens in their misplaced hope to gain the ability to use it.
Going door-to-door in District 9, Wikus encounters peaceful and hostile aliens alike. Some have illegal stores of weapons. One has something entirely different, a chemistry lab of sorts to which Wikus cannot immediately comprehend. Fiddling with a tube-like device within the lab, Wikus is sprayed by an unknown chemical. Thus begins his metamorphosis from clod to hero.
Satire Turned Serious, District 9 Works in Every Way
District 9 takes all the best elements from films like Starship Troopers (TriStar 1997), Cloverfield(Paramount 2008), Independence Day (20th Century Fox 1996), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Columbia 1977) and leaves out all the correlating garbage. It is a film unlike those named or any other, introducing a new take on the alien invasion genre perhaps most closely related to Alien Nation.
From its pseudo-documentary beginnings, District 9 adds realism and life to and often lifeless genre. Copley's acting is uniquely human and connecting, despite the extraordinary and inhuman events occurring around him.
The film opens with harsh satire and social commentary filled with its fair share of tongue-in-cheek humor (whether intended or not, it works). It moves fast with lots of great, human-disintegrating action. Before the audience can realize it, a bond is formed with the film's human and alien protagonists, their plights sympathetic if not identifiable. The film seamlessly transgresses from desensitized plot filler to something substantial and thought-provoking.
The Bottom Line
The computer-generated aliens still come off kind of rubbery, but one quickly sees beyond this as he or she is enthralled by the plot. As critic Zachary Herrmann describes District 9:
"Actually, the film is all too real. That, more than any amount of gore, justified or not, is what stands out as most disturbing. And dead on accurate."
This is easily the best not-necessarily-evil alien film since Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It's smart, original, and a must-see for all science fiction fans.
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