Sunday, August 30, 2009

District 9 Movie Review

District 9

Matinee with Snacks

The early previews of District 9 looked like a dark update of Alien Nation – visitors come and can’t leave so we take them in and let’s see what that’s like. The previews are deceptive. That may be what Act I of District 9 is about, but certainly not the real story. Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, the film parks the aliens for 20 years in a shantytown and it’s impossible not to recollect the same slums from the time of apartheid. In that country’s history, the minority white settlers ghettoized the conquered native blacks, and here it is the established humans ghettoizing new arrivals. The fear and hatred and resentment outside District 9 is real, but the secret exploitation is what makes this film more than a thinly veiled allegory. We know, looking back over human history, that the treatment of these castaways would be just like this, or worse.

Newcomer Sharlto Copley (sexy in person at Comic-Con) is Wikus Van der Merwe, a nerdy pencil pusher who inadvertently stumbles upon the aliens’ greatest secret. Called Prawns by humans, the aliens have something we want, but they have managed to defy our exploitation until Wikus accidentally opens that door. Sharlto is wonderful – new to film, he’s very natural and earthy and believable, and we are caught up in his performance and his empathetic nature. Director Neill Blomkamp encouraged his actors to improvise as much as possible to add realism to the scene, which is a seriously ballsy choice considering how pre-planned heavy effects movies need to be as a rule. I learned that one performance-capture actors performed all the motion work for the Prawns, and regretfully have been unable to retrieve his name to applaud him. The alien body design is bipedal, but with bird-like reversed knees and a chitinous and reticulated body. Still below all that is that actor’s vivid humanity, which serves to bring the audience closer to these visitors emotionally. A cowering form elicits pity even if it has antennae.

District 9 was made for a seemingly impossible $30 million, and it wows you not with expensive overdone bells and whistles, but with making everything feel as real and grounded as possible. The best effects are the ones that don’t seem like effects (the perpetually hovering derelict spaceship, for example) and just fill in the story. We feel like we’re really there with Wikus and the main alien known as Christopher Johnson, thanks to the digital video and hand-held camera, oh and the incredibly realistic effect of Johnson. This film doesn’t throw itself around trying to be the biggest movie of the summer (no offense, Iron Man), it just is a blessedly original story told as bare bones as possible, while also exhibiting seamless special effects. It’s low key in its excellence by just being solid and real and well thought-out.

Oh, but I should note that this movie is crazy gory. But, so were the Oscar bait movies Saving Private Ryan and Gladiator. It’s not gore for gore’s sake, but it is definitely unapologetically vivid. In the 72 hours during which the majority of the story takes place, writers Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell pack in story and character and spectacle and humanity at its best and worst. By the time we get to Act III it’s pretty intense, so be ready for it. I’m so grateful that the original project project that Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson were going to do (a movie adaptation of the video game Halo, deep sigh) fell through so we could have this great original work. District 9 is going to be studied and discussed for a long time, it’s substantial and revealing. Go see it.

MPAA Rating R-bloody violence and pervasive language
Release date 8/14/09
Time in minutes 112
Director Neill Blomkamp
Studio TriStar Pictures

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