Review of District 9 (2009) by Michaelf — 15 Aug 2009

I've gone over this again and again in my head, because I was really upset about the disconnect between my experience at this movie and seemingly every other review I've read about it. I was really hyped up for this flick, because it felt like it was being made by really creative, really intellectual people who were going to present an allegory in a really new and fresh way.

All the promotional material was top-notch, and I spent hours at the website exploring and learning about the premise and the back-story, and just kind of absorbing the whole thing. I showed up at the theatre expecting to be genuinely challenged mentally and maybe even morally, and instead, it was just a popcorn flick.

If my expectations hadn't been jacked up so high, I probably could've enjoyed the movie, but it just wasn't what I was hoping for. District 9 was our last chance to rescue 2009 from a summer that included Transformers 2, G.

I. Joe, and literally the most boring Harry Potter movie I've ever sat through, which is saying something. Instead, the characters were one-dimensional; the plot ended with the premise, and the ending was a WTF? moment for the ages.

The violence wound up being pretty good, but in my head, I was screaming at the good guys, "WHY AREN'T YOU KILLING THEM!?" and at the bad guys, "WHY AREN'T YOU RUNNING AWAY?!" The special effects and the general presentation were superbly done and visually stunning, but unfortunately, that's where the creativity stopped.

Also, I think that if you lived through the 80's, you pretty much got the Apartheid metaphor directly from the trailers. You can almost go into the movie and take it as given. Instead, you sit there and get hammered over the head with it for an hour and a half.

It just made me cringe after awhile. And at the same time, it's the elephant in the room. At a certain point, I was waiting for someone, anyone to stand up and say, "Hey! Remember that one time in South Africa when we used to pretend like blacks weren't real people? This is JUST LIKE THAT.

'Cept with aliens." I guess I just found the whole thing insulting, intellectually, which is the exact opposite of what I was expecting, which is why I was so disappointed. And I'm even more disappointed with moviegoers for not calling the moviemakers out on it.

Instead, everybody's fawning all over it, hailing it as unique and original and smart, of all things. It just makes me sad.