A movie about people

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2010)

It sounds simplistic, but really, in a situation that was so set up, the movie did spectacularly in focusing on the main plot line while keeping the background story adequately explained without overwhelming the main story. Never is there a point where Wikus Van Der Merwe and someone else bring the movie to a grinding halt with expository narrative like "You know, 20 years ago when this first started..." The trailers gave us what appeared to be a faux-documentary style, involving a modern-day Apartheid... with aliens. That alone would get my butt in a theater seat. Holy hell.
In a time period where unique and genuinely great and entertaining movies are a scarcity, this one is a welcome blessing. I hate to do this, but I feel forced to; "Avatar", nearly $300 million dollars to make has some of the best and most realistic CGI ever. And it has a story a 4th grader would find lame and stupid.
It's story is not unique, not good, not interesting, full of stale cliché's, total lack of surprises, and a tiresome Human-bashing with a glorification of Na'vi culture that is a near perfect mirror for Native American societies before we extinguished them as the evil creatures we were.
This movie, meanwhile, is wholly unique, as much as it can be in a day and age where the audience has seen pretty much everything. The setup is right there: Aliens come to Earth as refugees, and rather than go to the stereotypical places of New York or London or Los Angeles, they end up in... Johannesburg, South Africa.
After the initial awe of first contact fades, these aliens become the source of most all racial hatreds of the local residences. The story is right in front of it: Wikus Van Der Merwe, set up as a doofy, bright-eyed, largely average and sheepish worker for MNU, the company tasked with caring for these aliens (who are revealed to not be very bright, and thought to be proverbial "worker ants" of a hive-mind society, or else the slaves/lower classes). The movie begins with a documentary which right away foreshadows exactly what will happen, in a brilliant way that neither draws suspicion nor gives anything away. Wikus seems inexplicably villainized by some of the documentary people for reasons you assume to be due to him being MNU, or being stupid, or making enemies or such.
Turns out, he's married the daughter of MNU's boss, and thus cries of NEPOTISM can be raised when he's put in charge of a vast eviction of the alien inhabitants of District 9. The eviction scenes are where the movie's only humor comes, easy and naturally, as Wikus and a co-worker, and a genial, fat MNU soldier go hut to hut trying to get the aliens (called "Prawns") to sign them. Rather than show us every single one, they separate some of them with convenient and brilliantly paced and placed bits of exposition, with documentary-style narrative of how the Prawns have existed, how they're treated over the years, how they've committed acts of violence, and how District 9 has attracted gangsters, primarily Nigerian, and how they exploit the Prawn's love of cat food by selling them the stuff in exchange for alien weapons and technology, though this technology is somehow bioengineered to work only for the Prawns. By the time the end of the eviction scenes comes, you're filled in with huge amounts of information, most from these asides, some from Wikus explaining things to his co-worker buddy.
The chemistry Sharlto has with the two of them is shockingly good, considering he's never acted before, save for a few seconds in Neil Blomkamp's short film "Alive in Joburg", which District 9 is actually based upon. His natural charm and humor is a welcome relief from even atrocities such as a Prawn ripping off a soldier's arm, then being shot to death, or a hut full of Prawn eggs being exterminated with a flamethrower, while Wikus jokes that their deaths sound like popcorn popping.
Probably one of the best things about the film is that it doesn't give us a trite, stale, and boring bit of character "development" or sudden shocking change or try to make Wikus perfect for the audience's sensibilities (which is exactly what "Avatar" does). Wikus curses a lot. Wikus is just as racist towards the aliens as the average person. He regularly calls them Prawns, calls them "Fookin' creatures" when accusations are made that he had sex with one of them, he is mean and nasty to some of the Prawns that get unruly or uppity during the eviction, and threatens to take away CJ's son when he throws a lollipop at Wikus's head.
Even when Christopher is trying to help him, Wikus remains racist. It isn't until the end that he comes to realize that Christopher is his friend. Even then, we aren't given any "big revelation" moment to show that he's changed. Well... we are, but not in that way! Puns ahoy~! It's violent, gory, has "foul" language, and it will make you cry. It is also one of the best movies of the year, potentially of the decade.
And it bears mentioning... Avatar put on a visual spectacle for $300 million that turned out to be a colorful Candyland version of "Dances With Wolves" without any of the compelling drama. District 9 more than exceeds it at literally 1/10th the budget. And while there wasn't as much CG, it bears mentioning that the Prawns are ALL CG, and they look just as realistic as any creature in Avatar---perhaps even more so.