Ok, I went and saw this tonight... I put the hype ade and just went to enjoy the film, open mind with no expectations.

And it did not disappoint in the slightest.

This film starts slow, giving the back story and setting up the main character and his journey.

But it never gets tedious and boring.

The CGI work is top notch and things seem real and gritty.

The "Prawns" as they are called are very unique and well done, they don't try to make them seem all evil or all good... they are just as varied and different from one another as humans.The movie pulls you in deeper with each scene, giving you a small taste of the lack of humanity in the people who run things at District 9.

The main character starts out as a complete ass, but he develops beautifully thanks to a solid story and wonderful acting.

He's not your typical hero, he doesn't always do the right thing.

He's a much more well rounded human character, and that is something rare in film these days.

Same goes for "Christopher", the hero Prawn.

He's multifaceted and interesting, not a cookie cutter alien.

These are characters you give a crap about, not just vehicles to join set pieces or move the plot along.

I don't want to give much away, but there are several scenes that will tug at your heartstrings and make you hate being human.

Scenes that will make you worry about the fate of humanity. It's definitely a thinking person's film, not a Michael Bay exploon fest.

This movie is out to make you FEEL, and it achieves it marvelously well.

If you leave and didn't care about what you just saw, you are either numbed by years of bad films or you have no heart.

There are also some amazingly kickass battle sequences, with no laser blasts and stupid sci fi cliche weaponry.

The weapons are very unique and exciting, as well as flat out terrifying.By the end of the film I was tense, the adrenaline was pumping...It was a great experience. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves unique films, great Sci-Fi, cinema in general.

If you loved Children of Men, or you actually got the point of Blade Runner... this movie is up your alley.

If you think Transformers 2 is the best movie ever or that Never Back Down was artsy cinema, go see GI Joe instead.



But I give this film 5/5 stars.

It's a masterpiece, just an awesome movie from start to finish.

Worth every cent of praise thrust at it's feet.

Go and see it immediately!

DarkArtist81 Tuesday 8/18/2009 at 03:27 AM | 52607
first off fantastic review Josh!

Joel and I have been talking about this movie with the wives nce it released. We want to go see it because of all the hype we just don't know much about it. It's like there wasn't much build up to this or something, at least I didn't see much.

Dammit Fenner, we're gonna have to take a bullet and see this thing. Sounds like it just may be a really good flick.
Horror Domain - Cursed Evil Overlord Wednesday 8/19/2009 at 05:03 AM | 52743
I've been following the movie nce it was announced, and when I saw the short film that Blokemp did that was the bas for this movie.

I just knew it was going to be a different kind of film than the usual, so I knew I had to see it.

It's got it's flaws, but even my Wife loved it... so that has to show something.

My Wife has a good eye for movies, but some go right over her head.

This one didn't.

Hell, she said she almost cried in one scene.

It's a ride bro, I think you will enjoy it.
DarkArtist81 Wednesday 8/19/2009 at 03:20 PM | 52778
fuck yeah! this movie kicks ass. kilelr review.

El Diablo Thursday 8/20/2009 at 02:07 AM | 52837
Finally got around to seeing this.

I have to say this is one of the best sci-fi movies to come around in a long, long time.

The story is very original and engrosng, and sadly it portrays an accurate representation of how a tuation like this would probably be handled by the human race if it actually occurred.

If your ck of the same tired crap coming out of Hollywood these days, go see this movie.

It is truly a breath of fresh air.
gummi Tuesday 9/08/2009 at 06:11 AM | 54216
SPOILERS

Well, finally saw it and I was let down

. . . but before you jump all over me I've got to explain LOL.

I hardly knew anything about this movie going in and made sure I knew as little as posble however I couldn't help but notice the buzz this film was getting on the net.

Every spoiler free review I read was how this movie was incredible, best film of the year, Jesus's second coming.

So obviously I was anticipating something huge.

I tried my hardest to go into this open minded but I was a little jaded having pretty big expectations.

It was a GOOD film . . . but wasn't nearly a great as was the net was stirring about.

So while it was still an entertaining flick (and I recommend it to anybody) I was still let down.

It's sort of the Phantom Menace or Kingdom of the Crystal skull syndrome. No movie can live up to such masve hype (hype in my head at least).

THE GOOD: Oh my, somebody remembered what originality is!!!!

Well sort of.

District 9 still takes some ideas from other films but overall I was seeing something fresh (not a remake or sequel).

Let's talk story first nce that's the ngle most important thing in any movie.

We open with Documentary style footage that is cut together showing our main protagonist, Wikus, receiving a promotion in alien affairs while random interviews are spliced in talking about Wikus in past tense . . . discusng something "bad" that he did.

Kind of an E True Hollywood story about the life and times of Wikus.

All of this is cut in with a little history lesson about Aliens coming to earth and how humans pretty much enslave them.

The story is brilliant in that it starts with Aliens already living on Earth interacting with humans.

Racism has already set in by the humans giving the aliens the name "prawns".

The documentary is itself symbolic of our media today.

They are painting the Prawns in a terrible light showing how destructive they are and how different their culture is to humanity's.

We the audience are shown many images that depict the Aliens as nothing more than brainless, destructive animals.

In fact I was getting shivers of how the film was painting humanity, as a whole, as Nazis. However, the documentary is nothing but lies and doesn't reveal how the protagonist was a hero (which we don't find out till the end of the film) or that the Aliens just want to go home.

This was a nice jab at the media today who dictate the public's opinions with lies or false information.

I probably liked this sub theme of the film more than anything else.Anyways, the film very subtly melts from a documentary, showing and talking about past events, to a film following our main protagonist with drama and action.

Kind of like, we'll show you what the "evil media" or documentary isn't showing the fictional public in the movie.

District 9 takes you from rallying for the humans to feeling sympathetic for the aliens. So as far as story is concerned (stripped down) we have nerdy Wikus (working for the weapons organization) who at first persecutes the aliens and doesn't see them as equals, finding himself becoming an alien (literally) and joining forces with them to save himself but then to grow beyond his selfishness and help the aliens get home.

District 9 is pretty much a beefed up E.T. as far as plot is concerned LOL.

Also, with any good story our Hero needs to go on a journey . . . a personal journey.

He needs to grow (for better or worst) from the beginning of the film to the end.

District 9 NAILED this. This is where we can move from story to character.

Wikus, the protagonist, is more than a one dimenonal character.

He could have ealy been casted as some familiar, macho, good looking, Hollywood regular but instead we get this nerd.

He's married to a women who is far out of his league while working for her father (who obviously thinks that Wikus isn't good enough for daddy's little girl).

Obviously this is how a goof like this even gets such a high ranking job or promotion, little princess batted her eyes at daddy . . . anyways LOL.

You can tell he doesn't believe the Aliens are of the same value as humans.

The scene where he has a bunch of Alien babies torched really puts him in the negative.

But then something happens, by accident he's infected with some alien virus and starts to slowly transform into a Prawn himself (the transformation is very reminiscent of THE FLY).

So now the Weapons company he worked for (and one his father-in law is in charge of) is now after him because only Aliens can operate Alien weaponry (something to do with DNA, I thought that was a stretch but oh well) and now so can Wikus.I'm not going to ruin the whole movie for you but I wanted to set that up so you could see how this film takes him on a huge journey.

Needless to say he originally only befriends the aliens for selfish reasons but by the films end he's come to the point where he's ready to sacrifice himself for them.As far as special effects, pretty darn good.

I still say Davey Jones in Pirates is about the best I've seen but overall everything was fairly believable.

There's really only one shot towards the beginning of the film that looked bad but that's small in compason to the film as a whole.

The Aliens where completely believable and you could see the emotion by their facial movements.

CGI characters are getting better and better all the time.

I actually stopped thinking these are computer images and started believing in their characters (for reference there are very few CGI characters that I've have truly believed in, District 9 makes the cut)

One last like, the setting.

The filmmakers could have ealy made this take place in the US (New York, L.A., Chicago etc..) but by placing it in South Africa it gives the American audience another level of interest.

Not only are the Aliens unfamiliar but this culture and section of the world is also unfamiliar to us.

I felt like I had twice as much to look at and take in because I'm not use to seeing a movie about South Africa let along a Sci-Fi flick in South Africa.

I applaud the filmmakersSetting this in the United States would have taken away much from this movie.

How many times can we see Aliens attack New York honestly?

You want originality?

You want drama?

You want action?

District 9 delivers.

THE BAD: There are just a few little things that kept this from being a GREAT film. It's a shame too.

Stupid Hollywood things really.

For one, when Wikus & the Alien scientist are raiding MNU for the fluid to power the Alien ship there is NO way those two could have done that alone.

I don't care if they had alien guns or not.

Two verse hundreds?

If they had bullet proof vests and military combat training maybe.

This could have ealy been fixed if they would have assembled a small platoon of Aliens to asst.

This leaves the Drones to do most of the fighting and allows Wikus and the alien scientist time to find the fluid.

Again, Wikus is no soldier and they could have used this scene to show him become one instead of already having him go from Nerd (turning into an alien) to Rambo in an instant.

Missed opportunity.

Also, I know the majority of the Aliens were worker drones but I wish there would have been more than one smart one (or scientist).

Out of 1.8 million only one?

There should have been a team of Alien scientists (5-10) who were working on the fluid for the past 20 years and then when Wikus and the soliders appear all the scientists (but one) are killed in a dramatic scene.

This isn't a huge deal but I hate how Hollywood always make "JUST ONE" the special one . . . normally you'd have several scientists especially out of 1.8 million?

Just saying.

Also, when Wikus is on the run and hides in District 9 he just "Happens" to run across the same Alien scientist's house he was at earlier that same day.

Once again, out of 1.8 million homes and he randomly (nce he didn't know where he was at at first) comes back to that same alien's house?

I HATE when this happens in movies and it happens ALL the time.

You complain about how did Michael Myers in Halloween 2 know where Laurie and Annie lived?

There you go.

Stuff like this happens all the time . . . against the odds.

Wikus could have still ran into that Alien again but it should have been done another way, I would have accepted bumping into him on the street before unknowingly going back to the exact same house.

Also, one of the main antagonists of the film is a military commando (can't remember his character's name).

He's painted as a really bad dude with lines like "I can't believe they pay me to do this" as he proudly executes an Prawn.

This character was completely forced and you could tell they wanted the audience to hate this guy.

For one thing, I hate filmmakers being in the audiences' face with obvious ploys to sway our feelings about certain characters.

This needs to be more subtle.

This poor character decion told me WAY early on in the film that this guy was not going to die until the end . . . like I've not seen this done a million times before.

What would have been GREAT is if it was forced that the audience should hate this guy and then he completely gets away with it and doesn't die LOL.

This does happen occaonally in films and I applaud filmmakers for having balls and breaking the standard Hollywood mold of giving the audience their happily ever after.

But District 9 falls short here.

Plus, just because this guy loves killing Aliens . .

. how does this really make him any different from Wikus?

Both were racist toward the aliens at the film's start.Sure, Wikus wasn't so malicious towards the aliens but a racist is a racist . . . doesn't matter how vocal, mean, or ignorant you are about it.

There is no difference between the two characters in these terms.

Only at the very end does Wikus have a change of heart but does this forgive him of all past ns?

And the ending . . . Wikus gets off easy.

He should have died (like the Commando) and he deserved to die for the horrific acts he ignorantly performed early on in the film.

He does in fact almost sacrifice himself for the Alien scientist but should have actually died.

Even though he did horrible things and was trying to make up for it I think it would have been a freak'n HOME RUN if he would have actually died.

To take him from nobody nerd to dying hero for a foreign species he formerly hated . . . now that would have been powerful.

I truly believe the only reason he was left alive was money.

Honestly, the studio and filmmakers knew this had potential and now a days you have to have a sequel to just about everything.

Keeping him alive ensures us a sequel. Another missed opportunity.

OVERALL I completely recommend this to ANYBODY.

You won't be wasting your money and it did what any good movie should:

Was I entertained? YES!!! Was it a good film? Yep

However, was it the Best film of the Year? No. District 9 really didn't live up to the hype but I wonder what I would have thought if I'd not heard anything about this at all and saw it 100% open minded with no buzz?

I still don't think I would have thought was the best film of the year but it's a darn good movie regardless.

Not Great but Good.
DaShape Wednesday 9/09/2009 at 03:26 AM | 54300
SPOILERS

Well, finally saw it and I was let down

. . . but before you jump all over me I've got to explain LOL.

I hardly knew anything about this movie going in and made sure I knew as little as posble however I couldn't help but notice the buzz this film was getting on the net.

Every spoiler free review I read was how this movie was incredible, best film of the year, Jesus's second coming.

So obviously I was anticipating something huge.

I tried my hardest to go into this open minded but I was a little jaded having pretty big expectations.

It was a GOOD film . . . but wasn't nearly a great as was the net was stirring about.

So while it was still an entertaining flick (and I recommend it to anybody) I was still let down.

It's sort of the Phantom Menace or Kingdom of the Crystal skull syndrome. No movie can live up to such masve hype (hype in my head at least).

THE GOOD: Oh my, somebody remembered what originality is!!!!

Well sort of.

District 9 still takes some ideas from other films but overall I was seeing something fresh (not a remake or sequel).

Let's talk story first nce that's the ngle most important thing in any movie.

We open with Documentary style footage that is cut together showing our main protagonist, Wikus, receiving a promotion in alien affairs while random interviews are spliced in talking about Wikus in past tense . . . discusng something "bad" that he did.

Kind of an E True Hollywood story about the life and times of Wikus.

All of this is cut in with a little history lesson about Aliens coming to earth and how humans pretty much enslave them.

The story is brilliant in that it starts with Aliens already living on Earth interacting with humans.

Racism has already set in by the humans giving the aliens the name "prawns".

The documentary is itself symbolic of our media today.

They are painting the Prawns in a terrible light showing how destructive they are and how different their culture is to humanity's.

We the audience are shown many images that depict the Aliens as nothing more than brainless, destructive animals.

In fact I was getting shivers of how the film was painting humanity, as a whole, as Nazis. However, the documentary is nothing but lies and doesn't reveal how the protagonist was a hero (which we don't find out till the end of the film) or that the Aliens just want to go home.

This was a nice jab at the media today who dictate the public's opinions with lies or false information.

I probably liked this sub theme of the film more than anything else.Anyways, the film very subtly melts from a documentary, showing and talking about past events, to a film following our main protagonist with drama and action.

Kind of like, we'll show you what the "evil media" or documentary isn't showing the fictional public in the movie.

District 9 takes you from rallying for the humans to feeling sympathetic for the aliens. So as far as story is concerned (stripped down) we have nerdy Wikus (working for the weapons organization) who at first persecutes the aliens and doesn't see them as equals, finding himself becoming an alien (literally) and joining forces with them to save himself but then to grow beyond his selfishness and help the aliens get home.

District 9 is pretty much a beefed up E.T. as far as plot is concerned LOL.

Also, with any good story our Hero needs to go on a journey . . . a personal journey.

He needs to grow (for better or worst) from the beginning of the film to the end.

District 9 NAILED this. This is where we can move from story to character.

Wikus, the protagonist, is more than a one dimenonal character.

He could have ealy been casted as some familiar, macho, good looking, Hollywood regular but instead we get this nerd.

He's married to a women who is far out of his league while working for her father (who obviously thinks that Wikus isn't good enough for daddy's little girl).

Obviously this is how a goof like this even gets such a high ranking job or promotion, little princess batted her eyes at daddy . . . anyways LOL.

You can tell he doesn't believe the Aliens are of the same value as humans.

The scene where he has a bunch of Alien babies torched really puts him in the negative.

But then something happens, by accident he's infected with some alien virus and starts to slowly transform into a Prawn himself (the transformation is very reminiscent of THE FLY).

So now the Weapons company he worked for (and one his father-in law is in charge of) is now after him because only Aliens can operate Alien weaponry (something to do with DNA, I thought that was a stretch but oh well) and now so can Wikus.I'm not going to ruin the whole movie for you but I wanted to set that up so you could see how this film takes him on a huge journey.

Needless to say he originally only befriends the aliens for selfish reasons but by the films end he's come to the point where he's ready to sacrifice himself for them.As far as special effects, pretty darn good.

I still say Davey Jones in Pirates is about the best I've seen but overall everything was fairly believable.

There's really only one shot towards the beginning of the film that looked bad but that's small in compason to the film as a whole.

The Aliens where completely believable and you could see the emotion by their facial movements.

CGI characters are getting better and better all the time.

I actually stopped thinking these are computer images and started believing in their characters (for reference there are very few CGI characters that I've have truly believed in, District 9 makes the cut)

One last like, the setting.

The filmmakers could have ealy made this take place in the US (New York, L.A., Chicago etc..) but by placing it in South Africa it gives the American audience another level of interest.

Not only are the Aliens unfamiliar but this culture and section of the world is also unfamiliar to us.

I felt like I had twice as much to look at and take in because I'm not use to seeing a movie about South Africa let along a Sci-Fi flick in South Africa.

I applaud the filmmakersSetting this in the United States would have taken away much from this movie.

How many times can we see Aliens attack New York honestly?

You want originality?

You want drama?

You want action?

District 9 delivers.

THE BAD: There are just a few little things that kept this from being a GREAT film. It's a shame too.

Stupid Hollywood things really.

For one, when Wikus & the Alien scientist are raiding MNU for the fluid to power the Alien ship there is NO way those two could have done that alone.

I don't care if they had alien guns or not.

Two verse hundreds?

If they had bullet proof vests and military combat training maybe.

This could have ealy been fixed if they would have assembled a small platoon of Aliens to asst.

This leaves the Drones to do most of the fighting and allows Wikus and the alien scientist time to find the fluid.

Again, Wikus is no soldier and they could have used this scene to show him become one instead of already having him go from Nerd (turning into an alien) to Rambo in an instant.

Missed opportunity.

Also, I know the majority of the Aliens were worker drones but I wish there would have been more than one smart one (or scientist).

Out of 1.8 million only one?

There should have been a team of Alien scientists (5-10) who were working on the fluid for the past 20 years and then when Wikus and the soliders appear all the scientists (but one) are killed in a dramatic scene.

This isn't a huge deal but I hate how Hollywood always make "JUST ONE" the special one . . . normally you'd have several scientists especially out of 1.8 million?

Just saying.

Also, when Wikus is on the run and hides in District 9 he just "Happens" to run across the same Alien scientist's house he was at earlier that same day.

Once again, out of 1.8 million homes and he randomly (nce he didn't know where he was at at first) comes back to that same alien's house?

I HATE when this happens in movies and it happens ALL the time.

You complain about how did Michael Myers in Halloween 2 know where Laurie and Annie lived?

There you go.

Stuff like this happens all the time . . . against the odds.

Wikus could have still ran into that Alien again but it should have been done another way, I would have accepted bumping into him on the street before unknowingly going back to the exact same house.

Also, one of the main antagonists of the film is a military commando (can't remember his character's name).

He's painted as a really bad dude with lines like "I can't believe they pay me to do this" as he proudly executes an Prawn.

This character was completely forced and you could tell they wanted the audience to hate this guy.

For one thing, I hate filmmakers being in the audiences' face with obvious ploys to sway our feelings about certain characters.

This needs to be more subtle.

This poor character decion told me WAY early on in the film that this guy was not going to die until the end . . . like I've not seen this done a million times before.

What would have been GREAT is if it was forced that the audience should hate this guy and then he completely gets away with it and doesn't die LOL.

This does happen occaonally in films and I applaud filmmakers for having balls and breaking the standard Hollywood mold of giving the audience their happily ever after.

But District 9 falls short here.

Plus, just because this guy loves killing Aliens . .

. how does this really make him any different from Wikus?

Both were racist toward the aliens at the film's start.Sure, Wikus wasn't so malicious towards the aliens but a racist is a racist . . . doesn't matter how vocal, mean, or ignorant you are about it.

There is no difference between the two characters in these terms.

Only at the very end does Wikus have a change of heart but does this forgive him of all past ns?

And the ending . . . Wikus gets off easy.

He should have died (like the Commando) and he deserved to die for the horrific acts he ignorantly performed early on in the film.

He does in fact almost sacrifice himself for the Alien scientist but should have actually died.

Even though he did horrible things and was trying to make up for it I think it would have been a freak'n HOME RUN if he would have actually died.

To take him from nobody nerd to dying hero for a foreign species he formerly hated . . . now that would have been powerful.

I truly believe the only reason he was left alive was money.

Honestly, the studio and filmmakers knew this had potential and now a days you have to have a sequel to just about everything.

Keeping him alive ensures us a sequel. Another missed opportunity.

OVERALL I completely recommend this to ANYBODY.

You won't be wasting your money and it did what any good movie should:

Was I entertained? YES!!! Was it a good film? Yep

However, was it the Best film of the Year? No. District 9 really didn't live up to the hype but I wonder what I would have thought if I'd not heard anything about this at all and saw it 100% open minded with no buzz?

I still don't think I would have thought was the best film of the year but it's a darn good movie regardless.

Not Great but Good.

good review. i would agree with almost everything you say. i also though the aliens looked a little too colorful for my taste, a little to fake. but overall a really good movie. and fun as hell!
joelsparks Thursday 9/10/2009 at 09:45 PM | 54401
Absolutely best use of a small budget ever, made with half the budget of the first Hellboy and it does not show...

Aliens were magnificent and original and the robot had so many homages to fan favorite videogames it was mouthwatering down to the gravity gun...
ironblade87 Saturday 12/26/2009 at 11:52 AM | 59527