District 9 (2009) Review

Review by Brandon Fu
Directed by: Neil Blomkamp
Rated: R (for bloody violence and pervasive language)

District 9 (2009) is set in Johannesburg, South Africa, which has had an alien ship over it for the last twenty years. They once drilled in there, and took all the aliens out, and now all the aliens live in the slums known as District 9. Nicknamed "The Prawns", the aliens live with discrimination from the population of Johannesburg, which urges the prawns to leave. They can't, due to the state of their ship. Sharlto Copley plays Wikus Van de Merwe, an executive at Multinational United (MNU), who is in charge of moving the prawns from District 9 to a camp a couple hundred miles out of the city. He ends up being exposed to their biotechnology, and becomes a kindred spirit for the alien cause. This is definitely one of the most unique ideas for a movie in recent years, and is definitely a great movie.

First off, the concept is awesome. On one end, it talks about the discrimination of the prawns, and ends up being a strong tale of friendship and mutual respect between different races. It is also incredibly awesome in terms of action. Due to MNU being an evil corporation in charge of many things, including weapons, the alien technology interests them greatly, but are unable to wield them due to the fact that they only work with prawns. Towards middle and end of the movies, the use of these weapons is definitely awesome. You know that game Titanfall, when the mechs collect all the bullets and shoot them back at people? Yeah, it comes from this movie.

Even though there are many good action moments, the writing of the script slows it down completely. There is a strong use of monologuing, and you would think that films don't do it no a days, but still. On top of this weird writing during tense moments, there are also some camera operation problems. It feels the Bourne series on steroids, with shaky cam EVERYWHERE. It definitely takes away from the movie, but most movies use this technique a lot. This is mainly because certain actors are incapable of making action scenes believable, and the use of shaky cam usually brings a feeling of urgency and panic. I don't like it at all.

The performances were also great. Sharlto Copley brings a breakout performance, and I hope that he sees more attention because of this movie. He brings heart, emotion, and even some grit and ruthlessness. He is the pinnacle of performances in this movie, and it is fun to have him as a main character. There is one performance that seemed a bit overacted though, which was an MNU colonel in charge of hunting down people. He was fine though.

All in all, District 9 is a wonderful narrative about oppression and rising against the system, yet at the same time it brings great action and great performances. Definitely one of the best movies in the last couple of years.

4.4/5