District 9

Rating: 10/10 (11 October 2009)

After The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong, Peter Jackson was handed the keys to a Halo movie. But work starting on The Lovely Bones (due out December 11, 2009) and the possibility of The Hobbit in his future, Peter Jackson opted to produce and wanted to pass directorial duties to an unknown South African director named Neill Blomkamp. With an unknown director known only for his short films, commercials, and special effects work and a reported $150 million budget for Halo the producers and studio balked at the idea of Blomkamp directing. After Halo fell through, Jackson offered Blomkamp a $30 million budget to direct the film of his choice. The result, a feature length version of Blomkamp's first short film Alive In Joburg called District 9.
District 9 starts as a documentary. Thirty years ago an alien ship came to a halt over Johannesburg, South Africa. After emptying the ship of it's inhabitants, the government segregates the aliens from the humans into a dirty third world camp called, you guessed it, District 9. The aliens who looks like a cross between insects and crustaceans and are referred to as prawns are forced to live in squalor and filth in rickety shacks and have to dig through trash for food or trade their advanced weaponry to Nigerian gangs for cans of cat food (their preferred food). Unfortunately, everything in District 9 isn't as it should be as the humans want them moved even further away from society, so a plan goes into effect to move the prawns even further from society into District 10. A group of officials from a government contracted firm called Multi-National United (MNU), led by Wikus Van De Merwe (newcomer Sharlto Copley) is sent into District 9 to give the prawns eviction notices stating that they have 24 hours to vacate District 9. During the course of their project, though, Wikus accidentally has some mysterious liquid sprayed in his face which has some devastating effects.
District 9 could quite possibly be the best movie I've seen all summer, my only regret is that it didn't come out sooner. It starts out as social commentary dealing with apartheid, the humans take great pleasure in treating the prawns as less than human, shuffling them around, berating them, and even burning down shacks that contain their eggs. It's this socio-political relevance that really causes this movie to rise above it's sci-fi peers. On top of that, the movie is shot with a real documentary feel, this adds to the gritty reality of the movie. You believe this is happening because it feels like a documentary you'd watch on the History channel.
On top of that, the acting is superb as well. A special shout out must be given to Sharlto Copley who has no acting experience and had no previous acting experience and had no intention to be an actor prior to Blomkamp's short film, Alive In Joburg. His character Wikus is seen in nearly every scene of the movie and you really feel for him despite his early despicable acts in the movie. You always feel for him and you always root for him, and while that can be attributed to great writing, it takes a great actor to really pull that range off.
The real winner in this movie, and what really blew my mind, though, are the special effects. I don't normally mention budgets when reviewing a movie, but here I think it's important. To give you an idea if you were to look at the other action movies to come out this summer you would see that X-Men Origins: Wolverine cost approximately $160 million to make, Terminator Salvation cost about the same, and Transformers 2 cost about $200 million. On the other side of the spectrum, if you look at comedies, Funny People cost $75 million, and last years Zack and Miri Make a Porno cost $25 million. Hell, back in 1991, Terminator 2 was originally budgeted at $77 million but went way over budget. The point: this movie had as many special effects as, say Wolverine, and cost less than a third of that to make and looks 10x better. Remember, all of the prawns, except the dead ones laying out on tables, were shot completely with digital effects and they all look photo-real. This movie easily looks like a $150 million plus movie.
All in all, I'm really hoping this movie starts a new trend among studios: more original movies. I highly recommend you check it out in theaters, but before you decide to take your kids remember that this movie does earn it's R rating. It has way more than it's fair share of cursing, and exploding bodies (that alien technology will get ya every time). If you have a chance to go alone, or don't mind your kids seeing gore and hearing multiple f-bombs, I suggest you see it now and not just wait for this movie to hit DVD.
5/5