District 9 Review by thegoldensimatar

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District 9 Review

Written by: thegoldensimatar

First, let me give a thank you to Peter Jackson for giving Neill Blomkamp the ability to make this film. Thank you Neill Blomkamp for creating the one of the best films of the summer and certainly one of the finest science fiction films in years. And as a film student, there’s plenty going on to dissect and figure out how it was done. A great thank you to you both as well as all those who worked on the film.

District 9 is a true tour de force debut; it has a robust story, well-drawn characters, emotional, superb action, and solid direction and will keep you interested from beginning to end. It’s a smart, socially conscious science-fiction film that requires audience attention and the audience thinking about the situations and what is going on. It's also incredibly dark and somewhat depressing and poetic at the same time. It's Blade Runner for the 21st Century, turning what we humans have been doing for the past several decades and condensing it into a thinking sci-fi action film.

D9 is one of the best science fiction films of recent years and in my book, ties with The Hurt locker for being the best film of the summer.

The beautiful offspring of the collapse of the Halo adaptation, D9 is South African Neill Blomkamp’s feature debut, based on his short film Alive in Joburg. The story is set in Johannesburg, South Africa where an alien spacecraft had been hovering above the city for nearly twenty years. The alien creatures, derogatorily called ‘prawns’ by humans, are in District 9 and the South African government has decided to move them from Johannesburg to a new location several hundred miles outside of the city. That’s where the trouble begins for MNU employee Wikus Van De Merwe.

With echoes of apartheid era South Africa, the screenplay by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell is giving an added bit of grounding in the reality. So it will certainly be having an impact when it plays in South Africa. There are also some elements that Americans might recognize such as giving the aliens more human names ala Ellis Island giving foreign immigrants English names. D9 isn’t so much hammering a social message into the minds of the viewers as much as using society’s behavior to ground itself in reality and then show what humans are capable of doing.

As a director, Blomkamp shows a strong, capable hand with D9. Not only is he a very visual director, he is also a storyteller. I never felt once during it that the story was meandering, elements were slipping out grasp or things were placed for the audience to go ‘look what he can do’. For telling the story, Blomkamp successfully blends a heavy cinéma vérité vibe throughout the film. The story is told partly through a more documentary approach with brief interviews and a cameraman following Wikus around in the first few scenes of the film and then more with a traditional filmmaking approach. Even during these scenes, the camera is primarily handheld and documentarian approach is taken through most of them.

Director of Photography Trent Opaloch (like Blomkamp making his feature debut) keeps the look documentarian and never going into the ‘hyper-real-music video-documentary’ look that is popular nowadays. During the action sequences I was never confused as to what was going on and nothing was ever cut too soon from that you weren’t able to see what was happening. The action scenes look more like an invisible combat cameraman filmed them and if you watch combat footage, there is a steady focus on the action going on by the operator and that’s what we get here.

Shot on the new Red camera system, the movie is crisp and the every detail is pulled out of the design. The lighting is very naturalistic without being stylized and never gets too dark. The use of more natural light is allowed by the Red’s advanced ‘eye’ and while it is digital, the movie looks like it was shot on traditional thirty-five millimeter.

The mix of styles and presentation of the story may polarize some audiences, as I’m sure that many people are not expecting it to fold out in this kind of a manner. You need to walk into D9 with a slightly more open mind and it works well. As a film student, I love the documentarian look and D9 is proof that my professors are wrong in saying ‘hand-held is trashy’.

One thing that may cause some more polarization is that the humans have a basic understanding of what the aliens are saying and vice-versa. I view is that if aliens come down to Earth, first thing we would want to do is communicate and learn their language as best as possible. So I think it works. There is subtitle use for the alien speech as well as some of the humans, who while they speak English, I imagine the filmmakers thought that their accents were too heavy for an audience to understand. I however felt the latter kind of subtitles were unneeded as at least I could understand them. I found during some of the more intense scenes, the subtitles for the English speakers were distracting. But that’s just a minor quibble.

There are mixes of humor throughout the film that may seem somewhat out of place but their placement adds a slight bit of levity and works in helping grip you more in suspense. Won’t spoil any of it, but its not really laugh out loud stuff, however there’s a great gag with a pig that I cheered.

One thing I didn’t expect as much as it happened but fully embraced was that there was a good amount of time spent with the aliens, specifically one dubbed Christopher. The time spent with him is incredibly humanizing in the portrayal of the alien’s plight and their desire to return to their home world. There was definite push for emotional investment into these characters and at times I felt more sorry for them than I did for Wikus.

The acting in the film is solid. Sharlto Copley (Wikus Van De Merwe) is very naturalistic in how he portrays the lead character and seems to easily carry the film on his shoulders. Copley shows Wikus’ evolution as a character fairly effortlessly from MNU employee to fugitive to possible alien saver. While he is the main character, there are times I found Wikus completely unlikeable, as he was just as racist as the other humans in the film to the aliens. Overall however, while at points unlikeable, there was a bit of feeling sorry for him for what he was going through.

The other lead “Christopher” is a completely computer created alien. I will mention the performance created by the folks at WETA Digital, as there is such humanity in the face and most importantly, the eyes. I saw Christopher less as an alien being but more of a human who wants to leave the slum he is trapped in and return to his home. I won’t fully detail Christopher, as that would spoil a piece of character development that is wonderful to discover and adds such depth to him.

The other actors in the film play their roles well and there is solid casting all around. The actors looked like they were their specific characters and none really felt out of place. While not as much time is spent with them, they are well drawn and you get an instant feel for whom they are within a few moments of meeting them. The acting if too campy or over the top would have completely destroyed the film, however the acting binds it like glue.

I’m a vocal supporter of practical effects, guys in suits and miniatures, who prefers visual effects to be used only to augment what is being doing practically or cannot be done for real. My biggest issue is that the CG doesn’t look real or at the very least well integrated into the real world around it. District 9 in my view boasts some of the very best CG work of the year.

To my shock all of the aliens were created in CG, not one shot with them was done with partial suits or animatronics. There is so much texture on their bodies and moisture in their eyes, the CG holds up very well. The integration into the environment is a place I feel a lot of quality CG falters and dies, however the integration is seamless and nothing looks out of place.

There are moments of slightly weaker CG, however the fact that while it looks more artificial the integration into the world helps sell it as something that is actually there. However, I have to say the vast majority of the CG, the overwhelming majority is expertly executed.

The pure fact that almost all of it holds up as photo real under the harsh African sunlight is testament to the quality of the animators.

District 9 enters the theaters with an R rating that is well deserved. There isn’t so much a gore fest, but the moments of bloodshed are quick and intense. People are vaporized and limps ripped off. However there’s far more visceral look with the wonderful makeup done on Wikus (won’t spoil) that looks disgusting and horribly painful. The makeup is also incredibly top notch.

The score and soundtrack is one of the least intrusive in a long while. There aren’t any rock tunes or metal chords. The score is naturalistic and does what music should do and emphasizes the action going on. The soundtrack is more tribal sounding and with choirs that work the same way.

If you see one film, see District 9. If you’re a science fiction fan, see District 9. If you want to support one of the most original movies in recent years, see District 9. It’s an experience I enjoyed fully and I eagerly await Neill Blomkamp’s next project. Per my usual exit, I’m signing off and there’s nothing at the ends of the credits.

This is a community member review and not a staff member review. We appreciate and respect the opinions of our readers and are gratefull that they took the time to contribute it.