District 9

District 9

It’s not at all what you expect. The trailers are misleading, and it’s a very good thing.

This has to be one of the most original movies about aliens I have seen in a long long time. Let me retract that statement, this is the most original movie about aliens ever! This movie has a lot of hype to it, and it might live up to all of it, but it for sure has the best special effects of any movie this summer. Some parts of the movie were slow, and kept you thinking, “I thought there would be more violence”

Directed by Neill Blomkamp and presented by Peter Jackson (LOTR, King Kong) this movie talks about the life of aliens, or prawns as they are called in the movie, living in Johannesburg, South Africa. Thirty years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees, the last survivors of their home world. The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in South Africa's District 9 as the world's nations argued over what to do with them. Now, patience over the alien situation has run out. Control over the aliens has been contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens' welfare - they will receive tremendous profits if they can make the aliens' awesome weaponry work. So far, they have failed; activation of the weaponry requires alien DNA. The tension between the aliens and the humans comes to a head when an MNU field operative, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts a mysterious virus that begins changing his DNA. Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable - he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9.

This movie was brilliant in many ways, but it was not perfect. In a way, it almost felt like I was watching a movie about the video game called Halo. The beginning was very funny, dry humor that you would find in most British comedies. Then it went to more serious, to scary, to very sad. It wasn’t an emotional roller coaster, but the mood changed throughout the film. Main character Wikus Van De Merwe played by Sharlto Copley was amazing. Pretty new to the big screen, Copley impressed me very much that I wish he were a million times more famous. It’s hard to explain why he was such a good actor, but the main thing that got me was that you feel in love with him, and there was so much emotion and love in his character. It felt very real watching him.

I would recommend seeing this movie for many reasons. 1. It is hands down the best movie out in theatres currently. 2. It has amazing special and visual effects. 3. It’s not your typical cheesy starship troopers alien type movie. 3. It doesn’t have any of the Wayne’s brothers in it. It was a very funny, sad, and intense movie with good alien gore in it. Not a good date movie, not to romantic at all.

The movie is rated R for violence, and a couple dozen F-words. All of it was in South African accents, so some of it wasn’t understood very clearly, but there was lots of swearing. Not so much that I wanted to walk out or that it ruined the movie for me, but enough for me to step back and say “wow, they didn’t need all those F-bombs in there” Other than the violence and language, the movie is pretty clean and safe.