District 9

An alien ship has stopped above earth and hangs there motionless for 3 months until humans force their way in. They find a ship filled with alien refugees, and what is first intended as a temporary holding grounds for them eventually become the aliens home slums.

Called "Distrist 9" the aliens and surrounding humans develop hostilities and it's decided the aliens will be moved to another location outside of the town, District 10. This is that story.

Fans of comic books and scifi will get a massive kick out of this movie, as the plot is thoroughly planted to later sprout into beautiful scenes that don't "simply happen" and with character development that continues throughout the entire movie. Something like this could've been done as horribly bad as Terminator 4: Salvation, simply big effects and the "big bad wolf" Terminators ever present, ever threatening and ever-missing their targets with their wild gunfire.

The aliens themself humorously called Prawns are interesting creatures themselves and the shooting around and of them is handled well. How do you draw emotion from an alien face? And I'm not talking putty-on-your-face aliens that Star Trek is so fond of, but computer generated little goobies. (They aren't little, take that out! - Editor) Angle, lighting, music, the emotions are conveyed through the medium of the movie itself, for those who can't discern any emotion from the still livid alien faces.

The main character, Wicus, is also a charming fella with a good heart who the audience should take to upon first seeing him. Seeing most of the movie is shot by his side this is a good thing, once it has you it wont let you go until the movie's finished. Whenever I'm watching a horror/thriller type movie all the old tricks are so easy to spot, the "background covered up by an opened cupboard door into JUMP OUT MONSTER RAR!" and such tricks don't affect me and never have, but I jumped about 15 times in this movie, just ask Jason.

These weren't the horrowshow type jumps though, more concern for the characters and whatever was about to happen to them. If you're queezy and have an easily upset gut prepare some head turns, but not too often and never for too long. Compared to Inglourious Basterds though this is an absolute walk in the park.

It does change styles from beginning of the movie to the end however, which a few might find unsettling or stupid, but it's a necessary change and a cleverly used device. It begins as a documentary and changes from there into, obviously, some action, sci-fi gadgetry and other fun stuff. I wont spoil a thing though, but I loved the fun special effects in this movie. Compared to the way Hancock changed from "funny superzero turned superhero" into "serious emotional driven plot" in what felt like a rough handbreak turn in your nan's old Cortina (whiplash all over my neck) District 9 gets away with it more like a smooth handbreak turn with Neo at the wheel while inside the Matrix.

The cast' groups were also more varied and realistic then previous movies. There's the humans, the aliens and the government (naturally) and those who want to feed of such things, like the media personalities, the people who are naturally against the aliens (aren't even earthlings!) and those who are for the aliens (hippy love, anyone?) and even some scheming nigerians who are at home in District 9 dealing with the aliens as they would be outside District 9 and dealing with humans. Funny chaps.

By the way, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's dad.

Thoroughly enjoyable, even got claps from a few dorks at the end when the credits rolled (yours truly included, I'm a supporter of clappers in general). More fun then Inglourious Basterds but these two movies are from different directors trying to do different things. Tarantino was having fun finishing a movie he'd wanted to make for 10 years, while District 9 is a briliant piece of escapism/action/sci-fi that also acts as social commentary on ever present refugee situations.

In terms of aliens there is no mystery to them here, the thrill is how things are dealt with, not the aliens themselves. For that, see Alien, Aliens and maybe Aliens 3.

In terms of sci-fi fun I don't recall this amount of fun and genuine "Holy shit wow!" moments since Back to the Future. Terminator's main grab (I just can't bag that movie enough) was the Terminator monster and great big one's at that, which seemed a pathetic attempt to cash in on T2s fame as well as the recent success of the large-sized robots Transformers, and they got it pathetically wrong. Robots without a story, however big and ready-to-fight, are boring contraptions. District 9's sci-fi is, quite literally, out of this world.

In terms of a movie itself there's plenty of camera angles and shit you haven't seen before, or atleast not a great deal of. Things like "gun cam" (the wielder sighted from a gun barrel mounted cam faced backwards), first person interview shots, wide establishing shots (with an alien mothership floating in midspace), security footage shots, plenty.

I'd love to give "District 9" 8.5 outta 10 but I just don't think as many viewers will have the fun with it that I did, considering my bias for sci-fi. The script wasn't as heavily written as something like Inglourious Basterds, either. To make 2.45 hours NOT FEEL LIKE 2.45 hours is an incredibly odd feat to pull off, but then again District 9 didn't feel like it was 2 hours long, and I did wanna see more after the credits rolled.

More fun and with social relevancy, I'd be more likely to foist this onto friends rather than Inglourious Basterds if they were the kind to consider their movie-money "precious" enough to not simlpy go and see both.

8/10