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Thirty years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees, the last survivors of their home world.
The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in South Africa's District 9 as the world's nations argued over what to do with them. Now, patience over the alien situation has run out. Control over the aliens has been contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens' welfare - they will receive tremendous profits if they can make the aliens' awesome weaponry work. So far, they have failed; activation of the weaponry requires alien DNA.
The tension between the aliens and the humans comes to a head when an MNU field operative, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts a mysterious virus that begins changing his DNA. Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable - he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9.
The Art of District 9Product reviews...
Review by: kiwireviewer-00
Dated: 2nd of September, 2009
OK, for the sake of argument I will have to suspend my disbelief that, firstly: Aliens are going to come to Earth as refugees, with hugely powerful weapons, and NOT use them to enslave us, secondly: that said aliens are going to be willing to accept what amounts to concentration-camp conditions even if they were worse off in their ship, and thirdly: that Peter Jackson stuck his name all over this expecting to earn kudos. Call me cynical if you must, but all three of these are hard to swallow...
The movie, and storyline, if taken on their own merits aren't too bad... the movie starts out annoyingly slow with a badly-filmed-documentary style that left me wanting to dive for cover in anticipation of the thrown popcorn from those in the rows behind me expecting action... as was I. However, things soon picked up and by the half-way mark I was surprisingly quite enjoying myself... this state of affairs lasted right through to the closing credits.
The special effects were, as one would expect in this day and age, top-notch... the Mothership was a seamless part of almost every outdoors scene, and the aliens (or 'prawns' as they get called a lot') were rendered to perfection. Now this is where I seriously got the creepies, as they reminded me a lot of the giant cockroach-alien from 'Men in Black' far more than they reminded me of small seafood nibbles. Since I have a loathing for 'roaches, the aliens were damned hard for me to 'empathise' with... even the good ones!
Overall, the storyline was pretty good, though far from spectacular... and the ending left it wide open for a sequel if punters fill the box-office coffers full enough... but I am kinda in two minds about that... part of me screams "Don't you DARE!" while another part says "Well, it would be good to see what comes of this..." so... will just have to wait and see. Despite being pretty good, this was a far cry from the titles I now expect from our illustrious 'PJ'... there was just too much 'dull fluff' at the start to really make a good first impression. Utilising a 'current' scene at the start, then filling the gaps with flashbacks *might* have grabbed me more... but I guess PJ left it to the director's judgement... and on his neck too.
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