District 9 Review

Every action movie director in Hollywood should be ashamed of him(or her)self.

That’s the thought that repeatedly jumped into my head as I watched what Neill Blomkamp did when he was given a “mere” $30 million to create his action-spectacle “District 9.”

In case you haven’t heard, “District 9” is produced by “Lord of the Rings” maestro Peter Jackson and based on one of Blomkamp’s own short films. It imagines a world in which extraterrestrials – derisively referred to as “prawns” – have made contact with humans in South Africa, where they’ve been forced to live in the slum-like, segregated area known as District 9.

The movie follows the genial, buffoonish government employee Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) as he leads the effort to move the prawns from District 9 into the even more oppressive District 10. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned, and that’s all you’re going to get out of me (in case you haven’t seen this remarkable movie yet).

Going into the movie, I expected it to be mostly a sharp apartheid parable – and it certainly makes that point in the first section of the film – in which humans turn out to be the real monsters, with a few moments of cool, clever action sprinkled in because of the modest budget. (Quality over quantity.) I was a little shocked at how much of a balls-to-the-wall shoot-em-up action flick this turns out to be. (Quality AND Quantity.)

I’m not going to give anything away, but the last 30 minutes are as exciting and action-packed as you’re likely to see this year. Blomkamp and his team employ visual effects that actually look like they could exist in this world, making it easier for us to get lost in and care about what happens on screen.

A big reason I care about what happens on screen is Copley’s fantastic, vanity-free performance. The novice actor (in his feature-film debut) makes Wikus someone we laugh at, someone we laugh with and ultimately someone we really feel for, which is key since we pretty much spend the entire movie with him.

Then again, the fact that we spend almost all our time with Wikus precludes us from getting to know any of the other characters which kind of lowers the stakes a bit for the relationship between Wikus and his wife, for example, and makes the bad guys a little too cartoonishly bad. We also don’t get to know too much about lead alien Christopher Johnson, other than his devotion to his son, and his desire to return to his home planet.

Still, this is a minor complaint in a movie that gets so much right. Blomkamp effectively employs an urgent documentary style at the beginning of the movie, which quickly and efficiently introduces the world of “District 9.”

Once things REALLY get going, and Wikus is on the run, all that happens is that “District 9” becomes what will probably end up being the best action movie of the year.

District 9…A-