Almost Perfect... Except for Hollywood

Rating: 7/10 (11 September 2009)

Through gripping gritty visuals of a social war between humans and "prawns" (aliens), District 9 reveals a riveting story and demonstrates the reality of human history and present. We begin with a back-story of an alien ship that has been hovering over South Africa. Upon investigation people find a population of starving aliens inside. Humans traffic them into a camp which develops into a ghetto, a chilling parallel to the Holocaust, Apartheid, and many other occurrences in history.
With characters aware of the camera and before/after interviews, director and writer Neill Blomkamp provides the audience with a fictional documentary. It was an intelligent choice to narrate the story in documentary style; not only does it ground the film in its own reality but everything occurs as if this very scenario is happening in the world as we know it today. Aside from the interjecting interviews we follow the character Wikus, an agent of the MNU (Multi-National United), which controls and contains the prawns through faked legal procedures and military force. Wikus begins as an unsympathetic, stiff character doing his job to relocate the prawns to a camp with worse conditions. He takes us deeper and deeper into the human treatment of these creatures, which are so near to us in every way except for appearance; they have their own language and technology.
The premise alone holds enough weight to promise an enlightening film full of warning to the viewers. It would have succeeded in such a warning if the story didn't give a happy and sappy wrap up that does not fit the first three-fourths of the narrative. It feels like an inspiring independent film with a Hollywood ending tacked on last minute. If you want to watch a film that tells it like it is without giving false hopes and conveys a message for people to change, then this is not the film for you. If you want ridiculous over-dramatized fight scenes, obvious dropped lines indicating a sequel, and an unrealistic ending then this is your film.
Everything before the ending had me on the edge of my seat hardly blinking between the graphic violence and character transformations, but I cannot ignore the unfitting ending which ruined a definite award-worthy film. Aside from the "Hollywood" ending the film was the epitome of fantastic. My advise? Watch it, and see what you think.