Sci-fi / Movie / English dub
Viewed a midnight showing.
Parental Warning: Violence, lots of blood, mild gore. There is a lot of adult language in this movie but because the guy doing most of the swearing has a South African accent all the words are pronounced differently and it almost seems cute... like if Elmo were to suddenly start dropping f-bombs.
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR STORY SPOILERS.
Plot Synopsis: Aliens come to Earth and park their massive spacecraft over South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg. Humanity is initially afraid of the alien presence however after months of trying to communicate with the aliens they decide to forcefully cut their way inside and find malnourished, near dead aliens. These aliens are evacuated from their ship to a slum town which has been set up underneath the spacecraft. This place is called District 9.
Story and Pacing: 7
The story initially starts off moving very slowly, introducing you to what is probably the most annoying protagonist I've [i]ever[/i] seen in a movie, however after the first thirty minutes or so the movie speeds up and gets progressively more and more interesting. I didn't really know what to expect coming into this movie based on the trailers... I was prepared for something like a sci-fi thriller but really it ended up having a lot more action than I was expecting. The whole movie, but particularly the action scenes, had a certain raw quality to it as well and because some of the weapons were over-the-top alien technology it felt like watching someone else play a video game at times which to me is a good thing.
Characters: 10
I call this movie a character development epic. Peter Jackson introduced me to what is possibly the most annoying human ever to have existed and by the end of the movie I really liked him. Peter Jackson introduced me to the ugliest, most filthy aliens I have seen in recent times and by the end of the movie I was past the first impression and saw a desperate race of people trying to survive. As a race of individuals (like humans) they each had different ways of coping with their situation yet fall prey to group-think when in large crowds.
Not all the characters are multi-dimensional. One of the main villains in the movie (a Private Military Contractor (PMC) colonel) is annoyingly one dimensional but he is well acted and fits into his role within the movie perfectly. Character development happens on such a grand scale in this movie, most anime/tv series have less development over the course of a season than this movie does in two hours.
Acting: 10
The acting was very convincing which helped really gave credibility to the documentary feel they were going for with the movie. I felt that virtually all the actors in the movie did the very best they could with the script they were were given with very good results.
Animation: 7
In the areas where computer graphics are used and set construction this movie really shines. On the other hand the fight choreography feels a little off particularly in fire fights. There is a point in the movie where PMC troops are assaulting a base controlled by a human gang of sorts. They are portrayed as being very professional, taking cover, not wasting ammunition, doing all the things you'd expect professional soldiers to do but not even five minutes later these same guys end up fighting an alien power armor suit and suddenly nearly all the tactics go out the window. I would think the need to take cover and make yourself a hard target for a terrifying piece of alien technology would be even more pressing than against a couple guys with AK-47's.
Production Value: 7
The movie switches back and forth between a documentary style handheld camera view to a slightly less documentary style but still seemingly handheld camera view. It gets really confusing at times and the friend I went and saw the movie with complained about it afterwards. It gave the movie a unique feel but often times you'd see a character reacting to something off camera or shooting at something outside of the view which made certain scenes a little confusing.
Final Grade: 8.2
Personal Bias: 1
I had zero expectations going into this movie, in fact I was expecting to hate it based on trailers and previews I had seen. This movie far exceeded my expectations.
What I Loved Most:
The ending. This movie leaves a lot of questions unanswered however I didn't get the impression that they wrote the movie with a sequel in mind. It felt more like the original Matrix movie (versus the second Matrix movie) where you really felt somewhat content with how things were at that point and could fill in your own blanks and didn't necessarily need a sequel to tell you in great detail exactly what happens next.
Little guys can do big things too! There's one character in the movie which seems to be a baby or child alien that just seems so adorable in a strange way. The relationship between this alien and it's “parental unit” is a lot like (in my opinion) the relationship between Dilbert and Dogbert (or Ratbert).
Is this the blood explosion gun, or the push people through walls gun? There is a lot of alien technology in this movie, fortunately the aliens aren't too interested in using it, and humans can't use it so you're not flooded with crazy over the top stuff but rather more of a controlled flow... sort of like how in FPS games you have weapons introduced to you (mostly) one at a time as you advance through the story... it's a little like this towards the end of the movie.
Stretching your dollar. This movie was supposedly shot on a real low budget but covers that up well since everything looks trashed anyways. I was actually particularly thankful that the alien weapons just blew people up into blood splatter (no gore).
Politically independent. The political messages of this movie are anti-apartheid (South African segregation) and pro-human rights. It was nice not coming out of the theater feeling preached at.
What I Hated Most:
Unexplained insanity. There's a character in the movie who's crazy. He's this PMC Colonel and he hates the aliens. He loves killing the aliens. He doesn't even bother attempting to hide this fact because no one really seems to care about the aliens... uhh... “human rights”. I understand that there are people in the world who are crazy and hate other people because of their appearance or background but most people justify these thoughts. They don't just hate a race or interest group, they hate them because
Did he just say funky butt loving? The main character of this movie is not a warrior, he is a corporate guy with no spine. That means when he is getting shot at he is freaking out for the most part which generally involves lots of swearing. Some scenes are him running along repeating the F-word over and over again though as I mentioned earlier it's pronounced in such a way that it sounds cute rather than profane (fooooooooooooook!!!) but just the same, some scenes felt like they were on permanent loop of him running down a hall way repeating the same word over and over again.
Closing Comments:
This movie is worth seeing for the character development alone. It's not quite an action popcorn movie like GI Joe or Transformers 2, but it does have action elements and is almost as fun to watch but has a much deeper message to it and a very clever way of communicating the message. You should see this movie if not in theaters definitely on dvd.
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