14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly good, July 31, 2010
At first, the plot and characters in this movie seem quite bizarre, but it eventually becomes apparent that the movie is clearly and faithfully illustrating a theme which is natural to the human condition. That theme revolves around what happens when a minority group lives in the midst of a majority group, with the division into different and opposing groups being established based on their differences in ancestry, appearance, language, diet, and other cultural traits.
In such a situation, the majority group may grow to detest the minority group and unjustly blame them for many of their own troubles, and they may even be tempted to exterminate the minority group (ie, genocide), but their instincts will usually tell them that that's going too far. Instead, the minority group will usually be allowed to continue to exist, but they'll be geographically cordoned off and their rights will be limited, so that they suffer deprived circumstances, including epithets, physical abuse, poverty, exploitation, and crime.
Again, the movie illustrates this (important) theme well, and in a way that there's no question about who the minority group is and the ways in which they're being mistreated. I found the movie gripping, and I suspect that I'll remember it for a long time.
If I have to come up with a negative criticism of the movie, I would say that perhaps some of the violence is over the top, and I wonder if it was necessary to include Nigerians among the really bad guys (given that their reputation is already bad enough).
Nevertheless, I do recommend this movie. It's much better than I expected, and it does its job well enough to warrant a full 5 stars.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Overbearing at times, but still pretty good., November 30, 2009
District 9 (Neil Blomkamp, 2009)
There is heavy-handed, and then there is District 9, a movie that goes so far over that line it's not even funny. Worse, the second half of the movie devolves into the most predictable buddy-cop flick you've ever seen, despite the fact that neither of the buddies involved is a cop. So given all this, why on Earth did I love this movie as much as I did? Part of it, of course, is the phenomenal effects work (the same reason I get so much enjoyment out of the even stupider Alien vs. Predator), but there's something more to it, and that something is Sharlto Copley, a South African actor making his feature film debut, and who manages to outshine everyone else in this cast.
Quick synopsis: aliens came to earth twenty years ago, choosing to land in South Africa, of all places. The government immediately set them up in a section of the city that rapidly became a slum, District 9. The human natives of Johannesburg are restless, and the government has come up with a solution to pacify them: move the aliens, derogatorily known as "prawns", to District 10, two hundred fifty kilometers north of the city, and thus two hundred fifty kilometers farther away from humans. Wikus van de Merwe (Copley), a bungling but likable bureaucrat who happens to the the son-in-law of the director of the company that runs alien affairs, is put in charge of serving eviction notices. Things rapidly get out of hand, due not only to the inherent racism on both sides, but because there really are some things going on in District 9 that the humans should probably have been wary of. At the core of those things is Christopher (no actor; the aliens are entirely CGI), an alien who just wants to repair their spaceship and go back to their home planet. Wikus and Christopher start off in a weird kind of colorless antipathy, but after a horrible accident causes Wikus to be shunned by the human population and smeared in the media, Wikus and Christopher find a need to work together to get what each is looking for.
What really makes it work, despite the transparency of everything, is Blomkamp and Tatchell's layers of understanding of innate racism. Underneath the painfully obvious exterior and the reactions of the outright racists is the sort of everyday prejudice rampant in the world today, and often not considered as prejudice. More to the point, the screenwriters don't try to pull their punches at the end and offer some sort of facile new-age "can't we all just get along?" mumbo-jumbo. (Come on, you know that would have happened in America.) Copley is able to pull off everything asked of him, both in this regard and in the wider role of reluctant action hero, and that's a pretty amazing thing for a first-time actor. He brings a fine sense of nuance to the role that really allows us to empathize with Wikus, as much as that empathy might make us feel uncomfortable at times.
And the effects! Forget the explosions and big aerial shots of Johannesburg and all that sort of thing and just look at the aliens. Who aren't really there. There's no guy in a rubber suit being augmented by CGI applications here and there; everything you see is CGI. That's an absolute boatload of work, and messing up any single frame could have done the illusion in. Doesn't happen. This is masterful work, certainly the equal of anything done by the top animation studios found in America or Japan, and it's magical. That alone is reason enough to see the movie. (Oh, yeah, and a lot of things blow up.)
So, yes, it does have flaws, and it's certainly not the second coming of Star Wars that so many have proclaimed it to be, but is it enjoyable and worth seeing? Without doubt. *** ½
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
99 of 132 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The absolute best movie of the summer, October 20, 2009
District 9 is something that perhaps no one saw coming, and ends up being the absolute best movie of the summer hands down. Produced by Peter Jackson and helmed by Neill Blomkamp (the director Jackson hand picked for the shelved Halo movie), District 9 depicts an alien race that came to Earth on an emergency basis a couple decades before hand, and have since become refugees in a violent slum in Johannesburg. Bureaucrat Wikus (Sharlto Copley) is charged with serving eviction notices to the alien "prawns", and through a mishap, ends up undergoing a horrifying transformation that makes him a wanted man by everyone. As he and a prawn dubbed Christopher Johnson become unlikely allies, things begin to really kick into high gear. Beginning as part mockumentary and part satire on apartheid, District 9 takes its time to become a bloody full-blown action/sci-fi opus that stays with you long after the credits are done rolling. What also helps make District 9 so good is that you truly never know what is going to happen next. The sheer unpredictability of the film helps make it so magnetic, and newcomer Copley manages to be hateable, likable, and sympathetic all at the same time as his character continues to develop and change (literally) as the film goes on. All in all, District 9 is an incredible science fiction film that features equal parts action and heart, and in a bloated summer full of empty blockbusters like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe, and the like; it is indeed refreshing to see something like this on the big screen. Do yourself a favor, don't miss out on District 9.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
