A fantastic allegory – and an allegorical fantasy.

Rating: 7/10 (17 February 2010)

Imagine an alien inter-galactic space ship arriving above one of the major cities of the world. Wait – that was already done in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). There's nothing like sticking to a good formula, though...
In this story, however, the world doesn't stand still; instead, the space ship does, hovering, blocking out the sun over a major portion of the city (in this case, Johannesburg) and, no doubt, interrupting the tanning efforts of many would-be sun worshippers. No matter, because the poor aliens' ship is broken, and its crew descends to earth for help – only to be corralled into alien ghettos by downright unfriendly humans who just treat them like, well, sub-humans. Now, just why the aliens – called prawns by the alienist humans – allow themselves to be so imprisoned is poorly explained. But, that's part of the delicious allegory, however.
Essentially, the movie opens with a private company – MRU – beginning the process of getting all those no good aliens off their butts, outta those slum dwellings and outta sight into to some other corral 250 kilometers away from the city, and – let's face it – outta the way of the humans too...
From that point, the satire is poured on, thick and fast, as the hero – some would say jerk – in charge, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) sees the eviction and transportation scheme going to pieces when other factions muscle in with more permanent ideas – like, death for the aliens, for instance. By the end of a bad day for Wikus, a worse one for the bad guys, and a cornucopia of crunching collisions between machines, men, and aliens, the viewer might be left drenched in the sweat of excitement – but, thankfully, not in the gory blood, body parts and guts that are liberally thrown about and which often spatter the camera lenses. All good fun, hey...
For me, the best part about the film is the comedy supplied by Wikus as he tries to save the day – for himself, largely – and the unintended (?) hilarity of the fight sequences between the bad humans and the good aliens. Talk about over the top gore mixed with humour: Nightmare on Elm Street is kid's stuff by comparison. Hang on, Nightmare is kid's stuff...
Oh, well, while on the topic of other movies, you should know that District 9 slavishly copies species metamorphosis from The Thing (1984) and The Fly (1986), powerful weaponry similar to that in the latest Terminator offering, and gallons of gore from the Predator series. So, all in all, Distruct 9 – sorry, District 9 is a pretty darned good action flick. Technically, it's very good too: doing for $30 million what cost Cameron's backers $300 million for his Avatar adventure, but without the 3D, of course. And, while on Avatar, you'll note distinct motivational similarities between Wikus in District 9 and the marine hero Jake in Cameron's epic; and you'll also see the organic/machine merge – as in Avatar – to let rip the ultimate intelligent killing machine. The cinematography, CGI and editing all meld to great effect for a frenetic, and often funny, 112 minutes.
In sum, as pure escapist entertainment it's an interesting film, with an even more interesting semi-documentary structure to it at the beginning and the end. Hence, overall, I'd recommended it to those who like to see something different in sci-fi – and combining a not-so-subtle message about intolerance, which, as some would know, has been the subject of cinema ever since D. W. Griffith made Intolerance in 1916.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as the French say.