Nobody really knew what this place was

Rating: 5/10 (8 December 2009)

It is rare that films have as much ambition or audacity as District 9. But it is even more rare that such ambition and audacity actually pays off, which is unfortunately shown once again with District 9. The set up of the film is told to us through interviews, documentary style; we learn that twenty years ago an alien ship came to a halt over the city of Johannesburg, South Africa and has not moved since. The aliens were eventually coaxed out of the ship and given places to live in a camp known as District 9. The camp is kept under extreme military surveillance in order to prevent the aliens from disrupting everyday human activity.
Sharlto Copley plays Wikus Van De Merwe, a government employee recently put in charge of evicting the aliens from their homes in District 9 to a new, more secure camp. While giving out eviction notices, he discovers a mysterious canister that sprays a strange mist into his face. This sets off a mysterious chain of events that leads to Copley slowly transforming into an alien himself. The remainder of the film focuses on Copley's attempts to reverse the process before it is too late. But the film takes far too long to get to this point and is never absorbing nor do we get any insights into any of the characters. They are simply strangers that are experiencing horrible and extreme events. Copley is fairly strong, but because of the lack of depth of his character, we never completely come to care enough about what is happening to him.
The film tries to be far to many things at once; a mocumentary, a social commentary, the next sci-fi classic and a summer action flick, and none of them work, not by themselves and not together. The mocumentary technique comes and goes when it's convenient, sometimes within the same scene. This becomes particularly confusing when in one cut we are seeing footage from an acknowledged cameraman documenting the evictions, and in another, normal film footage. The film is clearly going for some social commentary, especially concerning Apartheid, but it handled in such a heavy handed and inauthentic way we never have an emotional response. The film has a couple moments with the aliens in which we feel we are seeing something truly unique. However, there isn't enough context, back-story, a sense of realism or mythology for this to join the ranks of the great sci-fi classics. And finally, when we get to the action sequences, they are underwhelming to say the least. Repetitious, excessively violent, and completely unabsorbing, the action sequences never come to their full potential.
There are moments when there is an incredibly raw, gritty and powerful feeling; a scene in which Merwe is being forced to shoot alien weaponry while being shocked with a cattle prod. But those scenes are completely overshadowed by the increasingly ridiculous and silly story. We get scene after scene of the same shooting, the same explosions and it simply gets boring fairly quickly. And something that has always bothered me in films, blood splattering on the lens happens over and over. This increasingly popular technique is unbelievably distracting and completely takes the viewer out of the story. It makes the audience so aware of the camera and the fact that we are watching a movie.
Although the set up of the film is interesting, and the effects are quite impressive considering the film's low budget, the film falls flat at almost every turn. Everyone in the film becomes extremes, and action movie cliché caricatures that are frankly laughable. There is even a moment when a character says "I won't leave you behind," not exactly fresh dialogue, but the laughability (yes, I know it's not a word, just go with it) is basically hidden because the line is in subtitles.
I applaud Blomkamp for making such an ambitious and interesting film, but he has a long way to go before he can become a great director. The film shows some promise for Blomkamp and hopefully his next project can achieve what this film failed to do.
5/10