Review of District 9 (2009) by Victor T — 08 Jan 2015

The first decade of the new millennium gave audiences tons of superhero films, young adult book adaptations and tons of remakes, but there were still some great films in that decade like "Children of Men", "There Will Be Blood", "Memento" and so on. But before the end of the decade a film emerge from nowhere surprising both audiences and critics with its concept: Neil Blomkamp´s first feature film "District 9".

In 1982, a gigantic spaceship stops above Johannesburg; eventually the South-African government allows the aliens, named "prawns" , to live on a camp outside of Johannesburg called "District 9" but the constant conflict between the prawns and the locals, they decide to move the aliens to a new district by hiring a military corporation name MNU to complete said task. MNU names Wikus as the lead of the relocation but he may find more than just aliens in "District 9".

As a lover of the science fiction genre and this film counting with such reputation, I had high expectations for "District 9" and while it didn't meet those pretty high expectations, it wasn't disappointing at all. "District 9" has a ton of greatly executed elements that at times it reminded me of one of my favorite films of the 2000´s: "Children of Men". You may be wondering why but both films share some elements: They both are ambitious and smart films that address some big and, even somewhat, controversial issues (in "Children" it is immigration, religion and at times evokes to the Iraq War while in "District 9" is xenophobia, racism, bioethics and evokes Apartheid), they present a grounded and chaotic version of our future, they both used creative styles to tell their stories (tracking shots or documentary), they count with incredibly detail and interesting worlds and both of them have the right amount of ambiguity in their stories. But that's is not all that this film has to offer; it also has solid protagonists, a creepy but cute alien design, gorgeous locations, directing focused on the little details, perfect pacing, creative art design and well executed action scenes. With all that being said, "District 9" is not the sci-fi masterpiece that most people call it, but it did get close to be honest, mainly because at times it feels like a mixture of other films of the genre and the fact that after the intriguing first parts of the film that makes the audience think about certain said recent topics (despite some pretty disturbing imagery and some cursing), it all goes away when it becomes a generic action film with over the top gore that it comes of funny (reminding me of Verhoeven´s "Robocop").

"District 9" is a memorable sci-fi film that mostly deserves the praise it got and some of the praise that the so call game changer that came out the same year "Avatar" got. It´s smart, entertaining, filled with style and sympathetic characters; it will definitely leave you wanting more of this world.