Overrated, massively frustrating and unimaginative

Rating: 1/10 (24 September 2009)

I just wanted to say I really hated this film because it promised so much and lacked so much. Here are my major issues:
1. Lack of any real focus on the alien civilisation.
This is the real crime of this film, any story which includes a 20 year period of prolonged contact between humans and aliens should surely have a go at getting a bit deeper into the alien experience than District 9 did. We hardly learn anything about the prawns at all. They aren't even imaginatively thought out aliens, they're just like a prawnish version of humans. Now OK, you can say 'Well that's district 9s brilliance, what if aliens are just like us? ' And yes, that's a valid point, but if they're gonna be posited as 'very similar to us' in behaviour etc. Then we need to have that justified through back-story, their culture, their history, their personalities, their technology etc. Look at all the conflicts humans of different ethnic groups have with each other, all the variances of sex, religion, work, leisure, war, education, food, music, etc etc. These would be multiplied on a MASSIVE scale if aliens landed tomorrow. But no, what do we get with District 9? Aliens that like cat food and have 7 moons instead of 1. It's just superficial.
And I do understand that these aliens are meant to be 'workers'. In fact, that's actually good plot idea, if a little cheap, what I'm trying to say is that if this actually occurred the 'workers' would still be a lot more complex and dynamic than how they are presented in this movie.
Can you imagine if our working class got stranded on a alien world? OK, there might be a few 'pissing in the street' moments but they would generally be a unified, motivated and complex force. Any isolated ethnic group would be.
2.
The documentary style REALLY ticked me off. It kept interrupted the good bits with unnecessary exposition ('then wikus did this, 'now we're at the lab' etc etc), even though it was really obvious what was happening, why do most new sci-fi films assume people are idiots like this? Also, the acting wasn't actually that good in those talking heads snippets. No way did they truly communicate the gravitas of making contact with alien civilisation.
3.
At the end of the day, this film has one only character who isn't a two-dimensional stereotype. And this character is pretty unlikeable! ....Which I liked, in a way, its nice to see him find his honour (or something close to it)..... but given that he has no one else to really interact with, the 'character landscape' of the film is a bit too cold and inhuman.
See reason 1 for why I don't think the prawn Christopher has any kind of believable character.
4.
It is a little bit racist. It's set in an African country and doesn't have one truly sympathetic black character, apart from the token scientist at the start, who is on screen for about 5 seconds.
5.
The transformer bit was terrible
6.
The back-story was far more intriguing than the main story of the film
7.
It had a very juvenile storyline for the most part. I mean, who really gets tortured and experimented upon by their own father-in-law without a moments hesitation? Very little dramatic plausibility and consequence.
8.
It could have been brilliant with a decent writer. That's always annoying.
9.
There are far too many plot holes to enjoy this film scene to scene. The thing about plot holes is they don't matter unless there are loads of them and then they constantly impair your 'plasuibility' meter.
Imagine you have a lovely fresh bucket of 'plot'. A plot-hole is a hole in that bucket.... plot that you lost enjoyment on because it went through a plot-hole.
Take a film like.......hmm star wars. It's got a fair few plot holes here and there, but they don't feel like they occur in every scene, and this allows one to drink from the 'plot' bucket with enjoyment unimpeded.
District 9, on the other hand, has tonnes of plot holes and the writing is so poor they jump out at you in almost every scene.
Now I know, one can explain 'plot holes', but lets face it, when you have to explain internally to yourself at almost every scene, it does somewhat damage the experience of a good film.
Thus, district 9, left me gasping at the bucket of 'plot' eager to drain some of its wonderful premise moisture, only to have it all spill to the dry ground through the mass of plot holes.
10.
I never once really felt like I could believe the situation was 'real' apart from the opening shots of he hovering starship. Which, to be fair, was beautifully done.