District 9 is summer 2009's surprise late summer hit. Executive produced by Peter Jackson and directed by a surprisingly young wunderkind from South Africa named Neill Blomkamp on an incredibly small budget of $30 million, the film is surprisingly effective and entertaining.MadProfessah and The Other Half saw the movie in its first week of release. He liked it more than I did; I felt that it got a little slow in the second act.
The basic story is about an alien ship which appeared suddenly above the city of Johannesburg a few decades. When humans explored the ship they found hundreds of thousands of malnourished and stinking aliens (who look like some kind of arthropod so that they get the nickname "prawns") who are then housed in horribly slum-like conditions. The movie has the form of a faux documentary covering the actions of a private corporation (Multi National United) who has received a contract to relocate the now 1.8 million prawns from their ghetto near the heart of a major South African city to a remote area hundreds of kilometers away which are a thinly disguised concentration camp.
The star of the documentary is a bureaucrat with clearly less-than-average intelligence named Wikus van der Merwe, played by the completely unknown actor Sharlto Copley.
The plot has a number of surprising twists and the visual effects are stunning.
District 9 is an excellent piece of film-making reminiscent of the original breakthrough hit 28 Days Later created by Danny Boyle (Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire) which is not perfect but is a significant innovation in the way action films are regarded. District 9 had a stunning marketing campaign (realistic signs on bus benches with "Restricted Area: For Humans Only") that raised the anticipation of the film to a fever pitch among fanboys and others, and then lived up to those expectations (89% on rottentomatoes.com).
Running Time: 1 hour, 52 minutes. MPAA Rating: Rated R .
OVERALL GRADE: A.
ACTING: A-.
IMAGERY: A+.
PLOT: A.
IMPACT: A.
it was a great movie
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