To be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to this movie. I haven’t been in the movies since “The Hangover“. Personally I blame Terminator: Salvation. That movie ruined my summer movie experience for 2009. But that’s a post for another day. If it weren’t for Emery and Cathy coming down I probably would not have seen this film. Good thing they were here because I was very pleased with the picture.
The plot of District 9 is that a Alien ship appeared above Johannisburg, South Africa about 25 years ago. After humans cut their was into the ship they find the Aliens which appear to be malnourished and disoriented. They bring them down to the surface and get them back to normal health. After a few conflicts with the general population the government sections off a area called District 9 to keep them separated.
In the present, District 9 has become a slum. Drugs, cross-species prostitution, and weapons trade all take place in District 9. This is pretty much where the movie beings. The organization that manages District 9 wants to move the aliens which are called “Prawns” by humans to a new area called District 10. They start by giving the aliens eviction notices. During one of eviction servings the main character comes across a silver canister that he opens by accident and gets some type of alien fluid on him. I’m not going to go past that because I don’t want to ruin any of the movie, but lets just say something things start happening to him.
They had a $30 million budget for this movie. They did a truckload with that $30 million. There was a lot of CG in the movie, however it didn’t feel cheap. All of the prawns felt real. Even the actors reactions to them were very convincing. The weapon effects such as lightning, explosions (of fire and people), and ammo in general looked pretty sick. There was a mech suit toward the end of the movie that was pretty wicked. The lighting effects on the CG reflected perfectly with their human counterparts, which is typically a problem area that you will see when you use cheap CG effects.
The plot moved at a decent pace. It didn’t move too fast, but it moved fast enough to not draw out any point. The movie was almost two hours long and it only felt like maybe an hour. There was no real message to the movie, which I am totally OK with. I’m getting kinda tired of movies with messages. Maybe if directors and writers weren’t so focused on sending a statement they would actually create better movies.
Overall, I felt that the movie was worth the $10. It was a good time, and I will likely be buying it on Blu-ray when it is released. It’s definitely a Sci-fi movie and not for everyone. It’s also has a good amount of blood so you may want to leave the squeamish home. The next movie I’m waiting for is 9. I’ll post about that one once I see it as well.
