Review: District 9 (2009)

[Jonathan Moya]

District 9
(2009)

A Movie Review
By
Jonathan Moya

4 Out of 5 Stars or A-

The Plot: (from Allmovie.com)

Director Neill Blomkamp teams with producer Peter Jackson for this
tale of extraterrestrial refugees stuck in contemporary South Africa.
It's been 28 years since the aliens made first contact, but there was
never any attack from the skies, nor any profound technological
revelation capable of advancing our society. Instead, the aliens were
treated as refugees. They were the last of their kind, and in order to
accommodate them, the government of South Africa set up a makeshift
home in District 9 as politicians and world leaders debated how to
handle the situation. As the humans begin to grow wary of the
unwelcome intruders, a private company called Multi-National United
(MNU) is assigned the task of controlling the aliens. But MNU is less
interested in the aliens' welfare than attempting to understand how
their weaponry works. Should they manage to make that breakthrough,
they will receive tremendous profits to fund their research.
Unfortunately, the highly advanced weaponry requires alien DNA in
order to be activated. When MNU field operative Wikus van der Merwe
(Sharlto Copley) is exposed to biotechnology that causes his DNA to
mutate, the tensions between the aliens and the humans intensifies.
Wikus is the key to unlocking the alien's technology, and he quickly
becomes the most wanted man on the planet. Ostracized and isolated,
Wikus retreats to District 9 in a desperate bid to shake his dogged
pursuers.

The Review:

District 9 has cool aliens.  They are a cross between a cockroach and
a lobster, with whirling green gyros for lungs.  They have a high
"ick" factor, although the main alien Chris looks like a Transformer.
His son is so ugly he is cute.  Their spacecraft stalled out above
the sky of Johannesburg South Africa twenty years ago and has remained
very ufo-ed there to the annoyance of the human population.  Out of
fuel and literally starving, they were shuttled down to a makeshift
refugee camp, then a shantytown, and for the vast peeved off humanity
in what would be hopefully the final solution to the alien problem,
now to a concentration camp 200 kilometers away from the nearest human
population.  The "Prawns" as they are derisively called live on the
edge of violence since they lack the basic life necessities.  Their
only value to humans is their advanced weaponry coded to their DNA.
Oh, did I mention that the Prawns are the good guys?

Leading the Prawn relocation is Wikus Van der Merwe (Silto Copley
giving the most out of nowhere acting debut in fifteen years), a mid
level screw up at MNU (Multi National United), a weapons and security
firm.  Wikus has his cushy position because he married the boss's
daughter.  Accidentally sprayed with a black slime cum starship fuel
developed by the alien Chris Johnson (body movement and voice of Jason
Cope, CGI exoskeleton by Peter Jackson's Weta Digital), Wikus starts
metamorphosing into a Prawn.  Wikus never goes full Kafka, just his
left hand, which can fire Prawn weaponry.  He is now a multibillion-
dollar asset to MNU- if he can be sliced, diced, synthesized and
assembly lined.    The technology to change him back exists solely on
the Prawn mother ship and Chris is the only way to get to it.

Peter Jackson originally hired Neil Bomkamp to direct the much-
anticipated Halo movie.  Blomkamp had directed three shorts for the
popular video game.  When that production went into turn around,
Jackson suggested that Blomkamp make a different feature.    Blomkamp
expanded and fleshed out his earlier short "Alive in Joburg" to
feature length while keeping the short's mock documentary style and
upping the apartheid quotient.  District 9 echoes District 6, the
mixed race neighborhood of 60,000, forcibly relocated when adjudicated
as whites only in 1966.  In a further eerie echo, the Prawns speech
(all of which is subtitled) has the clicks common to the Bantu
language.

The double flip-flops in District 9 give its satire a human edge.
Both Blacks and Whites exploit and repress the Prawns.  Lacking a
consumerist mindset, the Prawns only exist to the White elite for
their capitalist potential- the multi-billion dollar reward for those
who can unlock, harness and replicate Prawn technology.  Never mind
that the breakdown of that technology is what stranded the Prawns in
Johannesburg in the first place. Their relocation is the next logical
step before genocide.  The Blacks use the Prawns for their juju,
believing that devouring a Prawn transfers their power and knowledge.
They take advantage of the Prawn addiction to cat food to create a
semi-slave underclass.

Wickus' metamorphosis is the flip-flop that gives District 9 its kick
and compassion.  Wickus and Chris relationship evolves through needs,
to self-preservation and mutual admiration.  It is a buddy flick
caught in action tropes and mated with the identity forged through
combat of a war movie.  The Defiant Ones meets Enemy Mine with a
little E.T. thrown in for resonance.  Chris and his son only want to
go home. District 9 like any great science fiction feature creates its
own screwy synthesis and worldview.  The Star Trek reboot was fun,
cuddly and familiar.  District 9, however, takes us boldly to places a
summer movie has never gone before.  For that, it gets an
A-.
The Credits:  (From AllMovie.com)

Neill Blomkamp  - Director / Screenwriter Carolynne Cunningham  -
Producer Peter Jackson  - Producer Terri Tatchell  - Screenwriter
Trent Opaloch  - Cinematographer Michelle Belcher  - Musical
Direction/
Supervision Clinton Shorter  - Composer (Music Score) Julian Clarke  -
Editor Philip Ivey  - Production Designer Mike Berg  - Art Director
Emelia Weavind  - Art Director Philippa Boyens  - Co-producer Bill
Block  - Executive Producer Elliot Ferwerda  - Executive Producer Paul
Hanson  - Executive Producer Ken Kamins  - Executive Producer Dianna
Cilliers  - Costume Designer Denton Douglas  - Casting The Embassy
Visual Effects  - Visual Effects Grant Hulley  - Stunts Coordinator
Image Engine  - Visual Effects Weta Digital  - Visual Effects Weta
Workshop Ltd.  - Creature Effects Zoic Studios  - Visual Effects

With  Sharlto Copley  - Wikus Van de Merwe David James  - Koobus
Venter Vanessa Haywood  - Tania Van de Merwe Mandla Gaduka  - Fundiswa
Mhlanga Kenneth Nkosi  - Thomas Eugene Khumbanyiwa  - Obesandjo Louis
Minnaar  - Piet Smit William Allen Young  - Dirk Michaels Nathalie
Boltt  - Sarah Livingstone - Sociologist Sylvaine Strike  - Dr.
Katrina McKenzie Elizabeth Mkandawie  - Interviewee John Sumner  - Les
Feldman - MIL Engineer Greg Melvill-Smith  - Interviewer Nick Blake  -
Francois Moraneu - CIV Engineer Team Jed Brophy  - James Hope - Police
Officer Marian Hooman  - Sandra Van de Merwe Vittorio Leonardi  -
Michael Blomstein - MNU Alien Civil Affairs Johan van Schoor  -
Nicolas Van de Merwe Stella Steenkamp  - Phyllis Sinderson - MNU Alien
Relations Mampho Brescia  - Reporter Tim Gordon  - Clive Henderson -
Entomologist Morne Erasmus  - MNU Medic Anthony Bishop  - Paramedic
David Clatworthy  - Doctor Mike Huff  - Doctor Anthony Fridjhon  - MNU
Executive Jason Cope  - Grey Bradnam/UKNR Chief Correspondent /
Christopher Johnson [Voice] Hlengiwe Madlala  - Sangoma Siyabonga
Radebe  - Obesandjo's Lieutenant Melt Sieberhagen  - Anton Grobler
Andre Odendaal  - Mike Van Kerland Jonathan Taylor  - MNU Doctor John
Ellis  - MNU Medical Scientest Louise Saint Claire  - MNU Medical
Scientist Alan Glauber  - MNU Operating Room Doctor Nicolas Herbstein
- MNU Biolab Technician Norman Anstey  - MNU Lead Medical Technician
Nick Boraine  - Craig Weldon Robert Hobbs  - Ross Pienaar Sibulele
Gcilitshana  - U Günters Woman Mahendra Raghunath  - SABC Anchor
Person Phillip Mathebula  - Meat Stall Seller

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya

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