Despite a truly horrible theater experience with the Morlock crew and Brian Wilson of Geist Panik, Audrey, Jim, Nelly, Brian, and I had an awesome time Friday night watching District 9. Before we get to the review, a word of warning. Never ever go to the AMC theater in Potomac Mills. Never. The regulars make it a horrible viewing experience. Two people threw up in the middle of the show and a few drunk assholes behind us were talking on their damn phones the entire time. Apparently, this is a regular occurrence at this particular theater. Something fucked up always happens when Nelly and Jim go there and Friday night was the last fucking straw. Morlock Enterprises has sworn off the Potomac Mills AMC. I will never go there again and I wholeheartedly encourage all of you to avoid that shit hole like the plague. Seriously, it was one of the absolute worst theater experiences in my life.

Fortunately, the movie kicked all kinds of ass that it was almost easy to forget the smell of puke that wafted up every now and then. The movie starts off as a documentary with interviews and file footage to give us the background for the film. Twenty years ago, an alien spaceship appeared above Johannesburg, South Africa. For three months, it just hovered there making no attempts to communicate. Finally, curiosity gets the better of us and an expedition force is sent up to cut into the alien ship. What they find is a population of malnourished and dying aliens who appear to all be worker class. The situation is declared a humanitarian crisis and the aliens are moved off the ship to a government camp where they are fed. Because of overcrowding and poor conditions, the camp eventually becomes an alien slum with rampant crime and its own black market. This is District 9.

It’s moving day for the alien refugees of District 9. The human citizens of Johannesburg are sick and tired of their alien neighbors and want them out. The situation teeters on the verge of total chaos. Multi-National United (MNU) is tasked with evicting 1.8 million aliens to District 10, a new government camp set up just outside Johannesburg. MNU field agent Wikus (pronouced “Vikus”) Van De Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley, is put in charge of the mass evictions. It’s through Wikus’s eyes that the movie unfolds.

I won’t give many more details because there was a lot that took me by surprise in this film. I kind of guessed at the main gist of things, but the way it all unfolded was quite refreshing. Sharlto Copley turns in a brilliant performance. He has to carry the film because it’s mostly through his point of view and he’s well up to the task. Wikus’s character arc is quite good. He starts out as a tight shirt, follow-the-rules, company man with a little streak of bully. Utterly detestable. But as his eyes are forced open and he’s forced to confront the atrocities he’s responsible for, he begins to see things from a different perspective. I ended up empathizing with him in the end. I’m not entirely certain he redeems himself fully, but his spiritual change of heart is very well done.

The aliens are fantastic. Weta really kicks things into notches never before seen. The motion capture actors created some interesting movements for the aliens. Very insect-like, but also very alien. There’s also a mech which you may have seen in the trailers. It kicks all kinds of mechy ass! Even the fucker on the cell phone behind me shut the fuck up when the mech lumbered onto the screen. Great design, awesome weaponry, I totally want one.

Obviously, District 9 can be taken as a not-too-subtle analog for the real-world refugee camps all over the world. I shook my fist at the humans for the way they treated the aliens. But I found myself utterly horrified to know that this is how we treat each other. Just replace the aliens with any repressed ethnic minority and you’ve got something that resembles what occurs in real life. The film doesn’t bash you over the head with the comparison. Nor does it offer up any solutions. But it’s there and it makes you a bit uncomfortable. The best sci fi makes you think and challenge your own perceptions. Indeed, Audrey and I spent the ride home talking about the implications of the film and how it reflects human nature.

I’m glad Neill Blomkamp got a chance to bring his vision to the big screen and I’m thankful that Peter Jackson saw fit to produce District 9 and continue to push Blomkamp. I’m a big fan and I can’t wait to see what Blomkamp comes up with next. In closing, here’s Blomkamp’s original short upon which District 9 was based.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 9:44 am and is filed under Crunchy Pants, Indy, Jam Scale Reviews, Movies, Sci Fi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.