Maybe not since James Cameron's Aliens (1986, mind you) has there been such a lean, muscular extraterrestrial-themed war movie. District 9 comes from an original script, no less, and a 29-year-old writer/director.
The Man Who Would Have Been Halo
If the name Neill Blomkamp rings a bell, it may be from back in 2006, when the South African-born filmmaker was slated to make his feature debut on an adaptation of the popular alien war videogame, Halo. Peter Jackson was to produce with his Weta effects team at Blomkamp's disposal.
Rising production costs led to Sony (whose TriStar imprint is distributing District 9, interestingly enough) and Fox shutting down the project, although both studios expressed doubt in Blomkamp's ability as a newcomer saddled with a blockbuster-sized film.
First Rate Sci-Fi On A Shoestring Budget
For roughly $30 million, Blomkamp, with the aid of the Weta Workshop, has made an unflinchingly gritty alien flick, quite unlike anything ever put up on the silver screen. More than just a collection of visceral action set pieces (which the film has plenty of), District 9 is a tightly spun allegory for apartheid, and in a larger sense, the insufferable atrocities humans inflict on one another.
The victims, in this case, are not humans but a stranded alien species referred to as "prawns" for slang. Rather than landing in Manhattan or London (a genre construct Blomkamp and co-writer Teri Tatchell briefly poke fun at), the alien ships come to the South African capital, Johannesburg.
With the space ships stalled above the city, the inhabitants -- a bug-like race with claw arms -- get herded into so-called refugee camps, which over two decades, have evolved into dangerous slum towns.
Inter-Species Tensions Hits The Fan
Everything spins out of control when Multi-National United (MNU) -- a private, defense contractor of sorts -- steps in to relocate the prawns of District 9. MNU office worker Wikus Van De Merwe (Shalto Copley in a fierce debut) has the thankless job of leading the bureaucratic front of what is plainly a military mission in the heart of the alien slum.
Blomkamp effectively immerses his audience in this slight variation on reality with a dead-on faux documentary structure. There is enough back history from various academics, journalists, MNU workers and Wickus's family members to emotionally embrace the racially (prawn-wise) insensitive main character and the strange (but not unfamiliar) world he lives in.
Socially Conscious Neo-Realism ... But With Aliens
As events take a turn for the worst for Wickus, the documentary structure drops in the background in favor of a taut thriller storyline of hunter versus hunted. Not surprisingly, MNU has a lot more interest in the elusive prawn weapon technology (their weapons can only be used by other aliens) than the aliens' well-being, and, without giving too much away, Wickus comes to see the other side of things.
Without too much trouble, Blomkamp could have beat his audience over the head like so many socially conscious message films choose to do (ahem, Blood Diamond). Luckily, Blomkamp couples his cries for humanity with a nearly endless reign of gunfire and explosions, including a particularly stunning shoot out at the MNU compound.
District 9 takes violence dead seriously. Sure, there's a lot of fun in watching Wickus strap in to an alien body armor suit and wreck havoc on those evil MNU soliders, but for all the exploding bodies and flying limbs, the gore serves its purpose.
The (Self) Interested Parties
The film is a story of self-interest -- some far more noble than others. Wickus desires to be back with his wife, MNU and the Nigerian black market gangsters want the superior alien weaponry at their disposal and the prawns just want to go back home, away from persecution and barely livable conditions.
Perhaps Blomkamp's greatest sleight of hand comes not from his technical prowess (which is impressive enough), but in the way he posits the major prawn character, Christopher. Viewers first meet Christopher while he's rummaging through a trash pile, as the prawns often do, searching for some sort of precious fluid with his son and friend.
Later, his homemade chemistry set and stolen computer is set up back in his shanty, and one can only assume the worst. So does Wickus -- figuring he's a terrorist working on a weapon. In District 9, this fear of the other has been applied to a fictional race of aliens, but the scenes of refugee camp poverty and unrest are hardly unfamiliar.
Actually, the film is all too real. That, more than any amount of gore, justified or not, is what stands out as most disturbing. And dead on accurate.
RATING: 4.5 out of 5 stars
VERDICT: Visceral and strangely moving, District 9 is the movie of the summer, as long as you've got the nerve for it.
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