Go see District 9. It is a lot of fun. It is not your standard action flick, hollywood bullshit though I must say I never rooted for aliens kicking human military ass so much in my life!!
It begins as a “documentary” which explains the back story very nicely.
Aliens space craft arrives and hovers over South African city of Johannesburg. It just floats there for three months. There was no invasion, no attack – nothing. Finally the humans fly up to the craft and cut through the hull only to find starving, weak aliens in need of our aid. We (the Humans) bring them to the surface in temporary shelters/hospitals for treatment and care. The makeshift hospitals turn into a slum/prison/shanty town. The Humans become resentful of the Aliens and insist that they be confined to one area (District 9) away from the Human population. The Aliens just want to go home. We won’t let them. By the way, the Aliens have advanced technology and weaponry that corporate evil doers want: “it’s worth billions of dollars.” Unfortunately, the weaponry can only be activated by the aliens themselves – it’s engineered to recognize their DNA.
Meanwhile, the government has assigned the policing and management of the Alien area (District 9) to the super conglomerate Multi-National United (MNU.) MNU happens to be the world’s leading weapons manufacturer. The citizens of Jo-burg are sick of the close proximity of District 9 and citizen pressure dictates that the government relocate the Alien populace. A big boss at MNU places his hapless son-in-law Wilkus in charge of the entire re-settlement operation and must serve eviction notices to the aliens – a 24 hour notice, going door to door. It ain’t pretty.
Witnessing the shanty town; the alien vs. human thing; segregation; and man’s inhumanity to non-humans is quite something.
While serving one of his eviction notices, Wilkus (soon to become our unlikely hero) gets infected by a tube of Alien liquid that sprays in his face as he attempts to open it. He starts to transform into (Oh my Goodness!) an Alien. The big dudes at MNU hope that they can gain access to the Alien technology through this unfortunate accident and move Wilkus to a facility where they have been probing and dissecting Aliens. They find that the merging DNA’s enable Wilkus to activate the alien weaponry and decide it’s time to probe and dissect Wilkus. This plan is discussed in front of him, as he now receives as little regard as the Aliens into which he is transforming. His own father-in-law is in on the plan. Fortunately, the Aliens are very strong and it seems Wilkus has taken on that characteristic as well and he escapes the facility and foils the plan. He is chased all over town and with no one to turn to (MNU has accused him in the press of intra-species mating which they say explains the transforming and in effect turns him into a pariah) he escapes to the Alien District 9 where we encounter even more heroes and evil doers as Wilkus buddies up with a heroic Alien and his son. I should mention that the “alien liquid” that sprayed into Wilkus face was collected by his new Alien friend who was collecting it to power a ship’s module back up to the Alien Mothership which is still hovering in the sky over Johannesburg.
I liked District 9. It was not a perfect movie: I kept thinking: why don’t they use their weapons technology and get the heck out of Dodge? There was a soft mentioning of a “hive mentality” and a loss of the “Queen” resulting in the aimless mess of Aliens we witness, but that wasn’t developed much and I don’t nit pick much. But It is not your “run of the mill” action flick, it has a little something special. I mean come on: South Africa, shanty towns, forced separations of races, police brutality, forced relocation… But mostly, it’s a good ole time at the movies with a vast open opportunity for sequels. I guess that depends on the box office. I, for one, wouldn’t mind seeing the return of this adventure.
I noticed there were a lot of Africans at the showing. I heard the accent of a friendly African woman next to me and asked her about the abundance of Africans at the showing. She said she heard that the film was shot in South Africa and that the shanty towns were quite reminiscent of where she grew up and she just wanted to see.
“Not many films shot in our country that we can see here at a big theater”
The film thanks the “People of Soweto” in the end credits. Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings Trilogy) produces. First timer Neill Blomkamp directed.
The District 9 Official Movie Site
is very clever! Enjoy!
