STARRING: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope,
Nathalie Boltt, Sylvaine Strike, Elizabeth Mkandawie, John Summer, William Allen
Young, Greg Melvill-Smith, Nick Blake, Morena Busa Sesatsa, Themba Nkosi,
Mzwandile Nqoba, Barry Strydom, Jed Brophy, Louis Minnaar, Vanessa Haywood
2009, 112 Minutes, Directed by:
Neill Blomkamp
First-time
director Neil Blomkamp were supposed to have directed a movie adaptation of the
hugely popular Halo videogame, with
Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings,
King Kong) producing. When plans for that
project fell through due to cost considerations, Blomkamp pitched the idea for
District 9 instead. It shows. District 9’s action climax filled
with ultraviolent mayhem is a mouth-watering foretaste of what a Halo
movie would have been like . . .
As if South Africa doesn’t have
enough problems of its own - being a developing Third World country wracked by
extreme poverty, crime and AIDS and all that – a giant flying saucer appears out
of nowhere to hover menacingly over Johannesburg, the country’s most populous
city.
This isn’t an alien invasion
however. The saucer may be filled with about a million alien life forms, but the
aliens appear to be listless refugees with no particular explanation for how
they came to be there, or what exactly they want. It also appears that they
can’t – or won’t – go home. These illegal aliens may not be of the variety that
seep through the border from neighboring Zimbabwe, but the net effect is the
same: their presence creates an instant social problem as the aliens become a
new social underclass that are forced to live in tin shacks surrounding
Johannesburg.
Sci-fi fans will spot
similarities between District 9’s premise and the 1988 film
Alien Nation that starred James Caan and Mandy
Patinkin, which was later made into a television series. In that film alien
refugees became the latest minority in the multi-ethnic melting pot that is Los
Angeles. Like that film, the aliens also arrived in giant flying saucer-like
spaceships. But that is where the similarities end.
Whereas the aliens in
Alien Nation were of the
Star Trek-lite variety being
played by human actors with spotted bald makeup, the aliens in District 9
are, well, truly alien. They resemble giant insects and are immediately dubbed
“prawns” by the human populace. Their sheer alienness makes their integration
into human society difficult – if not outright impossible. Soon the city of
Johannesburg is littered with Apartheid era-style “Humans Only” signs.
The alien designs – CGI creations by Peter Jackson’s legendary New Zealand WETA
effects outfit – while not particularly original are very well done.
Call it species segregation
instead of racial segregation, but it is It is Apartheid all over again. The
sprawling poverty-stricken shanty town in which the aliens are made to live is
actually called District 9, an allusion to District 6, the name of a so-called
“non-White” neighborhood that was bulldozed in the ‘Sixties by South Africa’s
Apartheid regime.
20 years pass. District 9 is
now a wretched hive of scum and villainy that will make even Obi-Wan Kenobi pee
his robes. The local human populace despise the aliens, and the aliens’ peculiar
habits and addictive predilection for tinned cat food haven’t been making things
easy for themselves either. District 9 is now plagued by anarchic lawlessness.
An international company named Multi-National United (MNU) is tasked with
handling the alien “situation” by forcibly relocating them to what is
practically an oversized concentration camp. Like the South African government,
MNU isn’t all that concerned with the aliens’ welfare either. Instead they are
only concerned with the potentially lucrative alien weapons technology. Alien
technology is much more advanced than our own. The problem is however that it is
biological in nature, which means that as much as we would like to, humans can’t
use the powerful alien weaponry. It requires alien DNA.
"District 9 is a wretched hive of scum and villainy that will
make even Obi-Wan Kenobi pee his robes!"
In charge of the forced alien
relocation is Wikus van der Merwe (excellent newcomer Sharlto Copley). Wikus is
a South African Chuck, the put-upon nerd as bureaucrat – well-meaning, but
ineffectual. Wikus’ first day on the job isn’t going too well. Obviously the
aliens are hostile to the move and getting them to sign their eviction notices
requires both a show of force and bribery (tins of cat food!). However whilst
investigating a suspected alien criminal hangout, Wikus contracts an alien virus
that slowly begins to alter his DNA. Suddenly Wikus is the most wanted man in
the world because he could be the key to unlocking all that alien weapons tech .
. .
Many made-for-DVD genre movies
such as Scorpion King 2,
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder and
Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King are filmed
in South Africa. Most of these movies make a point of disguising the
fact that they were shot in South Africa. District 9 is very different
because its South African location is actually intrinsic to the plot. It has a
very South African flavor to it, right from the various accents on display to
the almost post-apocalyptic Sowetan landscapes. That however doesn’t mean that
the story is limited to the South African experience. Its storyline may seem to
be a direct metaphor for the recent xenophobic social unrest in that country, but
its themes are much more universal than that as any country which has grappled
with issues such as illegal immigrants and racial discrimination will attest.
“In South Africa,” actor Sharlto Copley says in the film’s production notes, “we
have to deal with issues that generally people around the world try to sweep
under the rug.”
District 9 could just as
easily have been set in Los Angeles or Washington D.C. and the final story would
probably have been roughly the same. But the exotic South African setting gives
the movie just that special edge over whitebread Vancouver settings. Even a top
secret genetic research laboratory seems more like an alien abattoir than
the clean, sterile facilities one usually gets to see in shows such as
The X-Files. South Africans will of
course delight in the spot-on depiction of local conditions. (One quibble
though: onscreen text consistently misspells Van der Merwe – probably the most
common Afrikaner surname - as Van de Merwe. It is the sort of detail that one
would expect director Neill Blomkamp, an ex-pat South African, to get right.)
But
that doesn’t mean that District 9 is a dry dissertation on social issues.
Nothing of the sort in fact. The movie can be best described as Alien Nation
meets Black Hawk Down (I never though I’d ever get to say those words).
The last half-an-hour in which MNU soldiers, aliens and Nigerian criminals
battle it out is as if one of the
Transformers went to Somalia to kick some serious butt. The sequence that
seems inspired by the over-the-top ultraviolence of
Robocop. Like that movie, District 9 is bloody and gory. But it also
shares a black sense of humor with Paul Verhoeven’s original 1987 flick.
The film itself is shot in a
faux documentary style replete with talking heads and excerpts from news
broadcasts and snatches of security cam footage. But unlike other hand-held
camera epics such as Cloverfield one never feels
the need to reach for the Dramamine. So if you’re prone to motion sickness,
don’t worry. The end result is always energetic and visually arresting. The
violence is visceral and the African textures tough and gritty.
To be put it blunt: District
9 kicks ass and we’re not just saying this out of some misguided sense of
patriotism either (the present author happens to be South African). Most South
African movies are either low-brow slapstick comedies that make Disaster
Movie seem like the height of sophistication. Or they are depressing social
dramas that make you want to gnaw at your wrists. District 9 is neither:
it is tough, gritty, thought-provoking, darkly humorous flick filled with
explosive action. (Make sure you see it in theatres instead of waiting for the
DVD.)
That is not to say that the
movie is without its faults. The second half of the film isn’t as intoxicating
as the first half. The action finale seems taken straight out of a computer game
and makes the same mistake as the recent robot slugfests in
Transformers 2: it looses sight of the human
interest. Newbie director Neil Blomkamp also seems at times to be in too much of
a hurry. Several plot points are muddied. One trailer let drop the intriguing
possibility that the aliens wanted to leave Earth, but weren’t allowed to do so
by Earth authorities. The movie itself however does not include any of this
footage.
District 9’s strengths
however far outweigh its weaknesses. The cast of mostly unknowns are always
game. The special effects and makeup are top notch. The SFX team also does a
remarkable job at making the aliens both menacing and sympathetic whenever the
script requires it. (“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”) The pumping Kwaito
tunes. Director of photography Trent Opalach making familiar South African
landscapes look like Ridley Scott’s Somalia. Production designer Philip Ivey’s
gritty, realistic and often gory sets.
If we were flippant we would
have said that District 9 is the best South African science fiction movie
ever made (it is also the only South African SF movie ever made). But the
truth is that in a summer dotted by mediocre efforts such as
Terminator Salvation,
Wolverine and
Transformers 2, District 9
is the best sci-fi action flick of 2009 . . .
First-time
director Neil Blomkamp were supposed to have directed a movie adaptation of the
hugely popular 
But
that doesn’t mean that District 9 is a dry dissertation on social issues.
Nothing of the sort in fact. The movie can be best described as Alien Nation
meets Black Hawk Down (I never though I’d ever get to say those words).
The last half-an-hour in which MNU soldiers, aliens and Nigerian criminals
battle it out is as if one of the