Friday, August 14, 2009

District 9 Review

Rated R (Bloody Violence and Pervasive Language)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 52 Minutes

Cast:
Sharlto Copley-Wikus Van Der Merwe
Vanessa Haywood-Tania Van Der Merwe
Jason Cope-Grey Bradnam (UKNR Chief Correspondent)
Nathalie Boltt-Sarah Livingstone (Sociologist)
Sylvaine Strike-Dr. Katrina McKenzie
John Summer-Les Feldman (MIL Engineer)
William Allen Young-Dirk Michaels
Nick Blake-Francois Moraneu (CIV Engineer Team)
Jed Brophy-James Hope (Police Officer)
Louis Minnaar-Piet Smit
Marian Hooman-Sandra Van Der Merwe
Johan van Schoor-Nicolas Van Der Merwe
Vittorio Leonardi-Michael Bloemstein (MNU Alien Civil Affairs)
Mandla Gaduka-Fundiswa Mhlanga
Stella Steenkamp-Phyllis Sinderson (MNU Alien Relations)
David James-Koobus Venter
Tim Gordon-Clive Henderson (Entomologist)

Directed by Neill Blomkamp

Humanity comes face-to-face with extraterrestrial life in Neill Blomkamp's "District 9."
So far, this summer has proven a general disappointment for movies, dominated by big, special effects laden films like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” that appeal to the lowest common denominator. Make no mistake, my feelings about those films are evident and whether you choose to agree with me or not is up to you. As we head into the final weeks of August, along comes the long-awaited “District 9,” a science fiction film directed by newcomer Neill Blomkamp with “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson serving as executive producer. Blomkamp was set to direct “Halo,” based upon the famed video game franchise from Microsoft and Bungie Studios but the project has now been defunct due to budgetary concerns from 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures. Jackson felt obligated to give Blomkamp a chance to direct another film and decided to make a full-length adaptation of his short film, “Alive in Joburg.” After seeing the film, I am left shaken as to how original and brutal “District 9” is as Blomkamp successfully crafts one of the most emotionally gut-wrenching tales that explore the darkest depths of the human soul but also their capacity for good. In a summer full of mediocre films made for mass consumption, “District 9” is a godsend and you’ll be hard pressed not to leave the theater deeply affected.

SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW! They came 28 years ago, a large alien mothership just hovering over the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. For three months, nothing happened and it was decided that a small research group would forcibly enter the ship. What they found was thousands of insect-like aliens starving and on the verge of death. At first, people welcomed them with open arms and tried to nurse them back to health at the holding facility dubbed District 9, but the aliens quickly became a drain on society. District 9 began to devolve into a colony of shantytowns, with crime rampant and the aliens, called derogatively ‘prawns,’ living in terrible conditions. Control over the colony was transferred over to Multi-National United, who cared little for the aliens’ welfare but instead wanted to reverse engineer their technology. They have been unsuccessful as the weapons only interact with alien DNA. Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is assigned to evict the 1.8 million aliens to District 10 but after an accident (which I will not reveal), his life is turned upside down and he is forced to become a fugitive. His only salvation lies in Christopher Johnson, an alien with a son who desperately wants to go home, and together they unlock the secrets of District 9.

This is a film that you should go in with as little knowledge as possible and the trailers have done a good job of introducing the basic premise, but the mystique is still preserved. The allegory of “District 9” is obvious: apartheid but applied to extraterrestrials. We know the horror of apartheid between whites and blacks in South Africa but how would we react to aliens just suddenly popping up? How we interact with them will certainly define the human race forever. Blomkamp shows that at first, we welcome these aliens, I mean, anyone seeing someone so malnourished would do the right thing and help them. Of course, helping them becomes a drain on society and people begin to say that these ‘prawns’ should just go. Their problems don’t concern us and whatever they’re dealing with pales in comparison with what we go through. This reminds me of how the American public slowly started to call for the withdrawal of soldiers of Iraq. The economy was tanking so why the hell are we wasting time trying to save some backwater country? As public opinion turns against the aliens, they treat them with disdain and take advantage of them. Thugs begin setting up shop, trying to get their hands on their weapons and even outright killing them to consume their flesh in order to gain ‘special powers.’ Corporations are driven by greed as they try to reverse engineer their technology and have no qualms performing horrific experiments on the aliens. District 9 is a trash heap, a concentration camp where its residents scrape by on nothing but garbage. In terms of different races, everyone tries to look out for themselves and no matter how much we say we accept everyone, deep down you’re just as prejudiced as you and me. We’ve just gotten to the point where we’re good at hiding them. When you look at the treatment of these aliens, it’s just a mirror showing us who we truly are deep down.

Out of this chaos arrives Wikus van der Merwe, played with such excellence and sincerity by Sharlto Copley, a virtual unknown actor from South Africa. When we first meet him, he’s nothing but a pencil-pusher and brown noser. While serving eviction notices to the aliens, he curses and treats them with extreme disrespect. Once the accident happens, he finally experiences first-hand the extreme cruelty of what the aliens go through. His superior, who just happens to be his father-in-law, immediately allows him to be experimented upon and the scenes where he’s pleading to see his wife (Vanessa Haywood) are gut-wrenching to watch. Once he’s a fugitive, he enlists the help of Christopher Johnson, an alien single father who’s trying to save his people. Wikus still has selfish means and is using Christopher for his own gain but as he achieves his moral awakening, he decides to put his life on the line and allow his new friend the chance to save his people.

The alien themselves are brought to life through Jackson’s own Weta Digital and they look amazingly lifelike and sympathetic. They’re black in color and have a shrimp-like appearance, communicating through clicks and chirps. One of their most unusual quirks is their love for cat food. Christopher and his son are at the heart of the story. Whenever the camera is up-close, their eyes are so expressive, revealing how much they’re on the verge of giving up. The son, as he stares at a hologram of his homeworld, asks his father how many moons it has and when he will go there but Christopher holds a pamphlet saying they can’t, because they are being relocated to District 10. There’s also another scene where the little guy curiously looks at Wikus and remarks that they’re the same. The relationship between parent and child shows more humanity than Wikus’ own family. It’s easy to dismiss them as nothing more as CG creations but that line of thought is absolutely wrong. As the film convinces us that mankind is the enemy, one wouldn’t feel any guilt if the aliens unleashed hell like the ones in “Independence Day.” In fact, it would be just. The ship itself is never shown off like another CGI effect and is little more than an afterthought, allowing us quick glimpses while remaining fuzzy in the background. The second half explodes with quite a lot of action, as Wikus and Christopher fight their way through MNU with alien weaponry, which isn’t all that advanced but absolutely destructive. You’ll see quite a lot of bodies explode and it earns it’s R-rating in spades. There’s also the Mech scene and that’s when the film has you firmly in its grasp as you’re wondering if there’s any hope for Wikus or Christopher. Blomkamp utilizes a documentary-style to tell the story through the use of testimonials looking back at these events and their effects on the human community. It lends the movie realism and allows us to accept what we’re being told as ‘fact.’

Released nationwide today, pre-release buzz of “District 9” has been immensely positive, and critic reviews reflect with that, with an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. Made on a relatively small budget of $30 million, the film may make three times this amount through positive word-of-mouth, though when I was at the theater today, there was only a moderate amount of people. “District 9” also leaves many of its plot threads unresolved so while a sequel is likely, I think it’s better to leave it as a stand-alone film and let it foster debate of what happens next. This film has single-handedly saved a summer dominated by inane toilet humor and loud explosions and one will leave the theater disturbed when ‘gazing through the dark lens of…human nature’ (James Berardinelli, ReelViews). Berardinelli also wishes that the ‘inhabitants of Earth never encounter visitors from another planet because the reality of how we might interact with them could be close to what is depicted here, and that's a depressing thought.’ “District 9” is brutal and cynical, depicting humanity at its worst but also at their best. No question this is the best movie of the summer by far and has all the makings of a classic science-fiction masterpiece.

Final Rating: 5 out of 5

"There are a lot of secrets in District 9."