District 9
Aliens – go home!
Storyline
An extraterrestrial race is forced to live within “the projects” (Yo, homie !) located in central Africa, striving to meek out their existence in hopes of returning to their home planet which they’ve been away from now for oh,…twenty f’n years! A spirited government agent who is exposed to their unique biotechnology may be their final hope or pull their air all together. Think: “Going Postal” meets “E.T.” . . . on crack.
The Cast and Crew
Hats off to Neill Blomkamp for not writing and directing what seems to be his first flick, but convincing folks to lend him tens of millions to make a sci-fi movie which appears written during some serious whippit sessions; which I’m sure he thought, “it’ll knock those tasty Reese’s Pieces right outta cute little E.T.’s, glow-stick hand” – Dum, dum, ta’daa… Oh, so sorry Neill, with two “ls” for good measure, but you’ve just lost in…Let’s Make a Movie! But turn that frown upside down you freaky little Spielberg leg-humper ‘cause we’re sending you away with: A YEAR’S SUPPLY OF CO2 CANISTERS ….to help with your next train wreck.
I wasn’t crazy about any of the cast members. A couple of the military guys were okay, but the rest could just have been wallpaper as far as I care – give me the aliens; I am your leader! I’ll tell you who needs a big, hats off is the art department, visual and special effects girls and boys. Yo, Michael Bay, learn a thing or two here for your next Transform-lamers. Michael, did you have to run your name twice within the first 20 lines of credits?! What a looser… Poser.
Good, Bad and Indifferent
The first 40 minutes – look out. If your have narcolepsy make sure your buddy/husband/wife/elicit lover has a cattle prod next to ya at all times. Once those minutes are over though, you’re in for a treat; great visuals and somewhat ethical think-age you may experience, so pop a vitamin before hand, okay. The story becomes quick and really refreshing after those long forty.
There’s a real spin in this story and beautiful character arcs when I look back. Also, just when you think you’ve seen it all regarding blood and guts being sprayed about and even on ya, District 9, gives us a little more. Think, 300 – Blomkamp made this flick in that vain. Made you feel right in the mix; however, the documentary style approach in the first 40 severely clashed with the “authentic” approach (as if you are there) during the remainder of the movie – no balance and amateurish. Left some room for a sequel though. Good call, Blom. Who knows? Maybe. Just maybe.
Loved the take on aliens and humans living on the same planet with the ethical dilemmas unleashed here; really fresh, if you cut the first forty I’d gladly bump you up a star or two.
Bottom Line
If you’re into sci-fi you really can’t go wrong – a truly unique storyline; however, wait until that rainy day and catch it at home – and fast forward the first forty, in case I forgot to mention that.
August 14th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Hey, Ck! While I appreciate your honesty about the movie, it seems like more of a personal tirade than a review. Your personal references are lost to someone who is not in the biz or not a huge movie buff. I am glad to hear that at least there is a new look at alien and humans co-existing. I would say just pull it back a little, and stop attacking people that you don't personally know. Tell me what the f'n movie is about!!
August 15th, 2009 at 1:33 am
I hear ya TeddyBlair, but I don't want spill out what happens in a film thus ruining someone's experience. I've taken a different approach to reviewing due to I'm not a layman anymore. I can't sit there an overlook the overall film-making process. Sorry about the personal "tirade" but I guess it's just part of the "biz." Too funny – John August's website has a "Tirade" section. Too weird. Now, if I could have the success he has! (Writer of Big Fish among many other films and hundreds of hours of TV).
Thanks for your comments! Peace.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I couldn't agree more. Great review.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:13 am
This movie was epic. It will receive a high rating as well as award nominations… some of which it will most likely win. This is a good site but do the editors here not know how to critique a movie any more? This isn't about your personal preference, it's about the plot, script, sound and cinematography. This will be a ground breaking film and it had a very unique style. The special effects were amazing considering the LOW budget. Honestly, I don't want to go tit for tat with most of the blather in, as Teddy perfectly described it to be a "tirade", but…most of Ck dictated in this review reads more like mindless, angry incoherent garble than like a competent movie review.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Chris, actually, Ck liked the whole film, except for the first 40 minutes, and that is mentioned countless times in the review. He mentioned the art department and the authentic special effects, "Once those minutes are over though, you’re in for a treat; great visuals and somewhat ethical think-age you may experience, so pop a vitamin before hand, okay. The story becomes quick and really refreshing after those long forty." If you read the whole review, I think you'll agree – lose the first 40 minutes and balance the style with the remainder of the flick and he would have amped up the star rating.
Still, thanks for the "intense debate" – this is the kind of stuff I have been waiting for . . .
August 17th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Yeah.. he just didn't like any of what gave the movie any substance. Heaven forbid we have some character development and a brief intro/ premise to a plot meant to remain subtely vague. While the action and cgi was impressive, especially due to the low budget, I definately enjoyed and more importantly, appreciated the camera work and third-person documentary approach to inform the user of exactly what is happening in the movie. From the documentary footage of various employees, to the main character, to field missions, to cutscenes of what people may be watching at home from their television, no one seems completely knowledgable on the reason and orchestration for the events of past, present and future except perhaps the "MIU" weapons corporation.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
The fact that you have to listen, think, and piece the plot together for yourself rather than having it spoon fed to you or worse, giving you too much closure so people can knit pick for continuity errors in a sci fi flick, struck me as impressive in all the right ways. But of course, it's summer, and I guess some people never get weined from wanting to just see explosions while they eat their popcorn. That's why any decent INTELLIGENT action flick that has some relative success (such as the first Matrix) gets cashed in by corporate production company america to discredit themselves in the end. After the huge success of this movie, and mark my words, it WILL be VERY successful, we'll see how many copy cats utilize this newer style of cinemetography in a forumula, cash-cow fashion and fail miserably.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
PS. Just ignoring most of the stupidity I read, I can't help but comment on narcolepsy comment. If you have narcolepsy your body falls asleep subconciously regardless of how entertaining, riveting, or stimulated the individual is. May as well just leave it as "if you have nacolepsy make sure a family member keeps a cattle prod near by" and leave the first 40 minutes out of it.
And you're right, every now and then we can all agree to disagree! but regardless of that, at least if you dislike a movie don't just troll about it in an insulting manner degrading all the people who worked on it and other films you dislike. Go into why you dislike it other than "it was boring" and have a little respect for the people who busted their asses on it until you can show us that you can do something better.
If i want to read "reviews" like that I'll go look for trolls on IMDB.com not a movie review site.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Chris, Apparently Max agreed with you, here is HIS take on the film. Since I haven't screened it yet, I can only let the three of you smack this around – but I LOVE the debate! RickSwift Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
This came from arollins, but for some reason it appeared under the Keeping Mum Review! I sent a request to Intense Debate to square this crap away – sorry arollins!
arollins says, "Hey this movie was nothing like what i expected! I am so happy that someone like this has addressed these immigration issues and actually put some kick ass explosions in it for good measure!"
August 18th, 2009 at 12:34 am
$30M to make that flick my ass! whenever i read "estimated" next to a budget i think back to my younger years when i told my parents "i estimate…", then jack on another 50% of bullshit until the bowling night figures leveled out, explaining why only lint was left in my pockets the next morning. estimated… %uck, man. i would LOVE to sell you a car. here, sign here please. cheese and rice!
LISTEN EVERYONE, see the f'n movie. it's raking in what…$40M now. yeah, real blockbuster… i hear they're pulling it in two weeks, so you better hurry. -OH, but i bet they throw it back up two weeks before the oscars. the lead guy is bound to be palming one of those cute little bald gold dudes this year. here they might even toss in a life size statue of him at one of the l.a. parks. *hit… go hit your crack pipe already, would ya.
seriously, it's worth seeing due to a new spin with aliens and humans grinning it out until the end. i didn't HATE this movie. the production value was out of this world. overall presentation of storytelling — sucked… just amazed at the millions pulled together to shoot this pup. have you ever tried to raise a million let alone 30? hats off to this guy.
thanks for all the responses! keep 'em coming !!! without you, district 9 would have no love!
peace –
August 18th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
What do you mean its not about personal preference? That's what a review is! Sure, the "tirade" made the guy sound like a total nutball, but hey, thats who he is. Now you know what to expect from his reviews. At least its honest. I can dig it.
August 18th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I agree, Aceman, film critics, from highly esteemed ones like Leonard Maltin and Roger Ebert, to us lowly folks here on Irate, are only human, and we all base our reviews on our own personal tastes.
August 18th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Have you seen the Halo shorts he shot, or the original short for district 9? or Yellow? or all the commercials he's shot over the years? He is one of the top 5 directors to look out for, plus he's PJ's boy, so obviously he's gonna get together 30milliii
August 19th, 2009 at 12:03 am
LOVING the intensity here. If this film and ck's review can illicit THESE kinds of highly charged responses, then I'd better slap on my loafers and nab the next showing!
August 20th, 2009 at 6:33 am
yo mane, the reason why no one cared about these creatures, and this was diplayed in the film, was because 1.)They were hideous, and 2.) there was nothing to learn or take from them. Thats why the main character became so important to the govt. at some point!
August 20th, 2009 at 4:52 am
Ok, Ck, I checked this one out tonight. I would totally agree with your review, although I would have given it 3 1/2 stars. The story had a ton of inauthentic characters, but one thing I can't take from this movie is it will have people talking, as it clearly has here as well. Since this isn't my review, I am going to throw some spoilers in now . . . SPOILER ALERT. Missing from the film was any decent human, or any humans with faith, no do gooders, charities would step up? No one ever managed to glean what the hell these creatures are doing here for 20 years, yet we can communicate with them, and they us, enough to sound kind of retarded yet have amazing bio-technology and the means to perfect it, while slowly, on Earth enough to do what needs to be done.
Whenever I see a political attack film, I have to ask myself, what is the agenda here, what is the lesson that these film-makers are trying to pound into our thick skulls? At first I thought it was going to be a treatise on Gitmo, or how we deal with undesirables in our world. But, really, WHERE WAS THE GOD-DAMNED COMMUNICATION???? In NATO we had an unofficial saying, if we can get you to share a coffee with us, you are less likely to want to kill us – so, there were a lot of really neat things happening in this movie – but they were almost ALL unbelievable, which really irks me considering that Jackson produced it. I mean, is fantasy all he can pull off? Sci-Fi has one little rule to make it a truly exceptional work, it must have some SHROUD of believability.
As there was only ONE sympathetic human character in the whole friggin movie, it was crap. Humans are NOT monsters, just look at all the good we do, charities, raising children, reaching out to other cultures etc. What would have made MORE sense was if we had bent over backwards trying to be goody two-shoes and they went all Predator on us. There were so many unanswered questions, which seems to be par for the course these days, with shows like LOST keeping everyone in the dark just long enough to keep them coming back for more. I see this FRANCHISE (yes, it WILL be one) doing that until the fan base gives up trying to guess, was it a slave ship, a penal ship, a true Doc Hollywood story, or what?
Nerds will be tearing out the throats of their friends who don't agree with their theories on just what will happen in three years and what type of ship it was. And, hey, apparently the entire WORLD didn't seem to want to know anything about these aliens, their ship, or why they were here for over 20 years. Yea, that makes sense!
August 20th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Max, you know if that really happened, if these things really landed – no matter how ugly and no matter how "useless", there would be George Clooney, Sean Penn, PETA, you name it, holding rallies to get them at LEAST the basic necessities. I mean, ok, CAT FOOD is what they craved more than ANYTHING? 1.5 million creatures eating only cat food, ok, how much could THAT really cost? I can see why Ck made his whippit comment there, instead of reces peeces the prawn ate cat food, I get the allusion.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Don't you agree though that the ENTIRE human element, and when I say "human" I mean, the do-gooder element, was ripped out of the film. Also, those slums would have been more believable if they didn't start OUT as slums, the District 10 area was only one step down from the D9 area. Also, there was one thing we COULD have taken from them that the creators of this film never even considered, KNOWLEDGE!!!!! So, we can communicate enough with them enough for the basics, yet our diplomats never tried to open any real dialogue with them? And then there is the opposite spectrum, the fear-mongers, you'd have as much money going into finding out if they were a threat etc. You don't just open the hatch, see they are suffering and THEN say, oh, we should help them – I guess, because, well, we don't want to appear like dicks.
Nah, this film was too unbelievable to be great, but, as I keep saying, it does get people talking.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:08 am
But, surely, Wikus doesn't become a good guy until he BECOMES an alien! If that isn't a direct criticism, using a literal metaphor, I don't know what is. The creators of this story do what a lot of scientists do these days, they take what doesn't fit into a nice little box and just gloss over that fact and harp and bore in on the stuff that matters to their agenda – and then they amp it up to "GLOBAL" proportions.
That was ONE thing I loved about this movie, for once, the EVIL US gov't wasn't portrayed as the ultimate boogeyman – of course that could be a sign of the political times too. It will be interesting to see if more foreign governments are vilified like in D9.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:46 am
Wikus wasn't fully transformed yet. He was as much an alien then as he was when he busted Christopher Johnson over the head, but now we're just splitting hairs.
If you want to get to some real criticism…how the hell are they going to survive space with a hole in the hull of the mothership…you know, the one they bore out 20 years ago? Or even better, with 6 SAMs on one tower and 2 spent, why aren't the other ones launched when the command ship is tractor beamed up?
May 15th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Love the design.
June 8th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Even though it was a bit obvious, I did like the hypocrosy of "apartheid" to the new minority in South Africa. I just saw the movie last night for the first time, and I do agree with some of the original review (even though the guy sounds like a bitter coked up wackjob). It started out very slowly, and ended very good.____Seems like its all set up for a sequel though (District 10?). Should be out soon, I am thinking. Anyone know?