District 9
All right all. It has been waaaayyyy too long since I have taken advantage of the interwebz to spread my media geekdom. I have a series of reviews that I will be posting up about various TV shows and movies. But, as I just had to sit through it last night, I decided I would post up my District 9 review now, and maybe save people some money and some of their brain cells.
Granted, not everyone feels the way I do about this, many people enjoyed this crap... but here it is:
District 9… or: How Many Movies Can We Cram Together?
Okay, I know that I am in a minority in not liking this movie. In fact, I am rather amazed at the fact that this movie is receiving such critical acclaim. Even more amazing is the fact that so many Sci-Fi fans are actually enjoying it.
Going in, I had no expectations, as I hadn’t really determined what District 9 was going to really be (the growing trend of minimal advertising to peak curiosity is in full effect here). Sure, the obvious apartheid metaphors are there. And the more recent trailer even gives hints of some action sequences to it. Okay, fine... but what is District 9 all about? Is it another Hollywood mirror, trying to show us the flaws in how we deal with “others”? Is it a political commentary? Is it a statement about the dangers of allowing corporations and private security to be involved in large humanitarian issues? Is it a movie about the “human experience”? Is it a movie about overcoming our differences to work together? Is it an action flick with extraordinary weapons?
Apparently Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp couldn’t decide either…
That’s not to say that it is all bad. The filming is beautiful, the alien technology showcase is very fun, and even some of the combat sequences are pretty driving. The effects are high class, very clean and crisps, but not so much that it distracts. And I think this movie may be in the running for the most exploding humans ever. Gore is present but not necessarily overdone; it stays as subtle as it can for peoples’ heads exploding and bits being ripped off. The queasier of you may not do well with the medical “experimentation” scenes, or the initial transformation scenes that involved teeth and fingernails falling off. I remember that there were a few moments that I chuckled at something, but the entire thing has washed over me like alien urine that I don’t remember any of them specifically. That’s really about all the good I have to say for it, it looks good.
As to the rest of it, well that comes down to the story being so horrible:
There are so many potential stories in District 9, it should work. Sadly, rather than choosing one or two good motifs to work with, the film makers decide that more is better, and piece them all in rather poorly.
This Frankenstein’s Monster of a movie starts off slowly, introducing the background information in the form of documentary clips. Interviews with employees of the uber-corporation MNU, sociologists, and civilians in the Johannesburg area fill in the details that 20 years ago a ship showed up hovering over the city. It did not move, it did not threaten, in was just there. After a few months of waiting the humans get a bit jumpy and decide to cut through the hull of the ship and see what is inside. They find millions of aliens apparently malnourished and without guidance, milling about aimlessly. Time passes, the aliens are shuttled off the ship (still mysteriously hovering, except for one piece that falls from it and is never found again), and placed in District 9. Time passes again, humans become angered at the situation (why? I guess that was all the socio-commentary we are going to get) and riots, protests, etc happen. Uber-Corp MNU is placed in charge of moving the millions of aliens from District 9 within the city to District 10 some 200km away.
Enter the focal point of the movie, Wikus van der Merwe, an obviously bumbling idiot with the social skills of a junior high student. Within minutes of meeting the main character, the audience is shown that he seems to be able to piss off everyone he comes in contact with either through arrogance, ignorance, or just his pure social ineptitude. We are given to believe that he has been placed in charge of the forced evictions just because he married the daughter of the CEO, and he proves that he has no qualifications for this work.
The forced evictions are shown in a way to draw pity to the aliens. Highlighting their poor living conditions, the degradation they face from those apparently there to help them, and the presence of other factions within and without that have taken advantage of them. But it isn’t done in any way that actually makes one relate to or pity the aliens. The audience is given reason to believe that aliens and humans can communicate, as several scenes of conversations occur, but the ability to actually comprehend is left lacking. Aliens are baited with cat food (don’t ask me), tricked into signing release forms, and generally man-handled and ignored. The majority of the aliens are displayed as nearly mindless feral beings. Attacking at random, eating junk tires, stupidly trading away alien technology, and continuing to mill about doing whatever they are told. At one point a trio of aliens is seen digging through a garbage pile to find alien technology. One of them picks up something and says that he/she/it found some. The item is knocked to the ground by our named alien, Christopher Johnson, who replies that the item wasn’t alien, but human tech. CJ’s son then shows up with an actual piece of alien technology, and they rush back to their backroom chemistry set to finish whatever it is that they are working on. The aliens can’t even recognize their own technology? Why does this one alien seem to have a better grasp on what is going on? How many other aliens are able to function in this way? None of these questions are answered. Instead we are whisked away to watch Wikus continue to make a fool of himself.
While bumbling his way through a series of evictions, it is shown that the aliens have a tendency to horde weapons both human and alien in nature. The aliens are shown to comprehend what is going on, but only to a point. Most of the scenes are done ala COPS where every episode deals with a drunken redneck or “ghetto thug” yelling at the cops for no reason, denying that they did anything wrong, and then either attempting to run away or attack for no apparent reason. The officers are shown to be either patronizing or condescending, and all in all, no real value is seen, and no explanations are given. In the process of this bad COPS take-off with aliens, Wikus finds an odd container with alien markings on it (the same container that CJ had just finished). He proceeds to tell the camera man that he has no idea what it is, but is sure that it’s fine… and then sprays himself with the liquid inside. A liquid which the CJ had been gathering over the last 20 years and processing with the help of his son and one other alien for no immediately apparent reason.
Now the movie decides to give all indications that this is going to become a virus/plague movie. Wikus is shown bumbling about town, coughing, sneezing, and “bleeding” black liquid in vehicles, his office, public cafeterias, and his home. Occasionally “time since exposure” clocks show up at the bottom of the screen. When he is finally taken to a hospital (still with the mysterious container in his coat pocket, again for no apparent reason), it is revealed that his arm has become an alien claw underneath bandages due to an injury received during the evictions. Doctors freak out and he is sent to MNU’s research facility to spend the next twenty minutes of the movie being tortured and ignored as a human, and finally being experimented on in a way reminiscent of bad 50’s Sci-fi movies. There is not a single example of proper scientific procedure or control. At no point is any explanation given, other than the fact that his DNA is shifting. So obviously, the bad-bad corporation is going to use him to operate alien weapons (that apparently don’t work for humans). A five minute scene then displays the destructive power of alien weaponry on pig carcasses and aliens (why use a live alien to test a weapon on when you can see the destructive ability on the carcasses and the brick wall behind them? I don’t know…).
Now the brilliant scientists, experts in DNA manipulation, alien technology, and I’m sure various other fields decide that the next logical step is to cut Wikus up while he is still alive and harvest his organs… huh, what? One must assume that these scientists must have attempted to use severed limbs to activate the weapons before. Anyone with half a scientific mind would question why they wouldn’t keep him in isolation and watch the transformation so that they can better understand what is happening. Anyone with half a brain would have to wonder why all these people are in contact with someone undergoing these transformations, someone that is having their DNA manipulated by an unknown source, someone with pustules, bleeding wounds, and other fluids leaking from their body, without a single contagion protocol in place. But I guess not, because we are just going to cut him up.
Needless to say, Wikus suddenly channels every bad prison movie ever made and escapes as they are about to take a saw to his chest. He manages to evade armed guards and private commandos and escape the building and wander around town for a while, where it is determined that MNU has released the story that he is contagious and a danger to the population. After a few continued bumbling scenes of Wikus being back to a normal moron (just with a big claw hand that no one seems to notice even though it is barely covered under his coat), he decides to hide in District 9, “where no one would think to look for him”. Huh? The District 9 that is filled with cameras and sensors? The District 9 that has a constant military presence? The District 9 that MNU is still in moving aliens? Yeah… Good idea.
Wikus finds his way back to Christopher Johnson, who suddenly decides to attempt to bring the audience up to speed by telling us that the fluid was a fuel that he had been harvesting over the last 20 years, so that he can use it to power up the shuttle that is hidden under his shack, fly to the mother ship, power it up, and fly home. And that CJ is capable of “fixing” Wikus and making him human again. Wait… wait… what? Okay, I’ll assume that CJ is being used to represent the leadership/science caste of the aliens. He’s smarter than the rest of them, they seem to listen to him and do as he says. Okay, I’m fine with that. There is an unknown and unmentioned way to manipulate DNA on the mother ship, the mother ship that apparently hasn’t been stripped down by the government/MNU scientists yet… fine. The shuttle that fell from the ship… which no one seemed to be able to find is buried under his shack and is the command module for the entire mother ship… um, okay. It would take them 20 years to collect enough fluid to make another power cell… sure. Oh wait… If he is a leader, why did he only work with one alien and his son to find all of this junk? You have a million aliens in a confined space filled with various alien junk, seems to me this should have taken a day or two and you could have been out of here. Or even better yet, why didn’t you just fix the ship when you were still on it!?!? These answers… not so much given and thought of, because instead we are going to gather a bunch of weapons from the Nigerian gang that is in District 9 that has been abusing and mistreating the aliens for the last few decades… Aliens that are shown as being strong enough and fast enough to slaughter humans without much of a thought… right… and go storm the fortified MNU compound
Our bumbling “hero” proves just how “white and nerdy” he is by getting himself beaten up by the Nigerians, his money taken, etc. Only to narrowly escape death by grabbing an alien weapon and fighting his way past dozens of armed guards who seem incapable of just shooting him in the head as he keeps stopping to have conversations with the boss who has decided that he wants to eat his new arm to take his power.
Cut to MNU, where suddenly CJ and Wikus are armed with numerous alien weapons and go blasting their way through the building back to the science lab (which looks more like a meat processing plant than a lab for some odd reason). Guards and Commandos channel their inner storm troopers and die as they go through doorways and empty clips of ammo at these two, never hitting anything even when CJ has dropped his weapon and is standing fully exposed in the middle of the room looking at a corpse of an alien that has been experimented on. CJ then suddenly decides to channel his alien MacGyver and combine a bunch of stripped down alien weapons to make a big bomb, and blow their way out of the building after finding the power cell in a box on a table.
If I hadn’t already been done with this movie by this point, just wait it gets worse!
CJ and Wikus steal an MNU assault truck and drive back to District 9 with all the commandos and security forces in hot pursuit. The same District 9 that is covered in sensors and cameras, the same District 9 that has large automated missile turrets throughout it… but yeah, they make it back to the shack with the shuttle hidden under it. Somehow they have time to have a conversation in which CJ tells Wikus that it will take him three years to fix him now, since he has decided to fly home first and get help to rescue his people, then he’ll come back and fix Wikus. Beyond all logic Wikus decides that this is unacceptable and since they had a deal he’ll just do it himself… He knocks out CJ and decides to fly the alien shuttle back to the mother ship himself. Presumably so that he can then repair the alien ship, use the alien technology he has never seen before and manipulate his own DNA to fix himself… ugh…
Because Wikus is such a moron, remember those missile turrets I mentioned before? Oh yeah, they shoot him down in about ten seconds after he abandons CJ with the commandos and magically learned to fly. Insert more random violence as the Nigerians attack the Commandos to get Wikus back for themselves, managing to pretty well neutralize the commando team who spends most of their time yelling for back-up and killing a seemingly endless supply of poorly trained but heavily armed Nigerians left and right… huh? Wikus is hauled back to the boss who gloats for a while as CJ’s son decides these morons he is stuck in a movie with aren’t capable of doing anything themselves, and remotely powers up a large mechasuit that is conveniently in the Nigerian compound, and begins killing everyone, allowing Wikus to escape… oh wait, I mean allowing Wikus to strap himself into this alien mech, apparently disabling the very impressive remote operation and targeting functions and run away, leaving CJ in the hands of the Commandos.
Since we have to have redemption in our movie… because really, we’ve had every other over-used motif so far, why stop here. Wikus suddenly realizes that he’s a dochebag and goes back, cutting swathes through the commandos and handing CJ a large chunk of metal to hide behind as they start running towards the downed shuttle. Random violence continues with no explanation why the very impressive magnetic shield that had been used early to catch bullets and shoot them back at the Nigerians is suddenly not working (or even why Wikus can use this suit!) as Wikus gets shot, a lot. Eventually Wikus realizes that he has no idea what he is doing and has basically destroyed this impressive weapon system and tells CJ to go on without him, as he attempts to make a last stand using the large missile pods attached to the mech. Wikus gets shot some more and the alien mech decides that it has had enough of this movie as well, and ejects Wikus and collapses. CJ has managed to get to the shuttle and remotely activate the apparently no longer damaged mother ship… huh? Which then begins flying to the downed shuttle and activating a tractor beam to pull the shuttle up… Cause, they couldn’t have done that before…
Rather than allow Wikus to get shot in the head, which I personally would have enjoyed, random aliens suddenly show up and decide to kill the last of the commandos themselves… thanks guys. CJ and his son sit haplessly in the shuttle as it is slllooooooowwwwllllyy tractored to the mother ship, now suddenly not being fired upon by the missile turrets, where it links up and the whole ship takes off.
Since we can’t leave bad enough alone, we are then gifted with more documentary style scenes where some of Wikus’ former co-workers express their wish that they had been able to help him, another reveals that they broke into the MNU research computers and discovered and exposed what had been going on (and is now in prison), and Wikus’ wife (who earlier in the movie told him to basically go “fuck off” because her father told him that Wikus had been having sex with aliens) suddenly collects everything Wikus has ever touched and sits about staring at, including a metal flower that “magically” showed up on her front door, because Wikus likes to make gifts himself. The movie ends with an alien making a flower out of junk in the middle of District 9.
[END SPOILERS]
Ouch. Again, I can’t fathom why this is getting good reviews. Sure it isn’t all bad, as I talked about earlier… but really? Come on. I think if this had been an independent film (which it was originally, this is just the big budget version of it) I might have dealt with it better. I may have expected a poor plot, sub-par acting, and plot holes big enough to fly that mother ship through. But Peter Jackson decided to tack his name on it, trailers decided to hint at some great socio-commentary, and reviewers started raving about how this was the greatest movie they had ever seen… I’m wondering if maybe they were exposed to some alien fuel cells or something.
I guess really it comes down to what you are looking for in a movie. If you are able to just sit there, shut-up, and run with what they are force feeding you, then you may enjoy it. If you have any degree of independent thought though… well, have fun suspending your disbelief long enough to actually take anything away from this movie other than the desire to have your money back.