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
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