Following the mammoth success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, fanboys eagerly anticipated Peter Jackson’s next project. Their mouths salivated when it was announced Jackson would produce a big-budget blockbuster based on the mega-hit video game Halo. Jackson hand picked Neil Blomkamp, a special effects artist and commercial director, to helm the project based on a script by Alex Garland (28 Days Later). Could it be that someone would finally make a video game movie that didn’t suck? Sadly, we’ll never know. A co-production between Universal, Fox, and Microsoft, the proposed movie died due to escalating budgetary concerns and in-studio politics.
The collapse of the long-awaited Halo project has yielded something even better. Based on Blomkamp’s short film, Alive in Joburg, District 9 was shot documentary-style on a relatively low budget of $30 million. Much more than the excellent Moon (which only cost $5 million) and not even a drop in the hat compared to the juggernaut of Avatar.
An alien craft hovers above the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. Inside the ship are refugees from another planet. They aren’t cute and cuddly like E.T. They don’t have superpowers, they aren’t here to better mankind or to conquer the world. They are confused, lost, and frightened. The aliens, derisively nicknamed “Prawns,” settle outside the city in a ramshackle shantytown known as District 9. A private military company, MNU (Multinational United), is tasked with policing the aliens, but they’re more interested in the Prawns’ biometric weaponry.
Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is an eager and officious employee for MNU. Mostly because he’s married to the boss’s daughter, Wikus is put in charge of MNU’s latest operation which calls for the relocation of the Prawns to a new refugee camp further away from civilization. While investigating a District 9 shack, Wikus is exposed to a mysterious liquid that slowly begins mutating him into an alien. MNU wants to dissect Wikus because the alien DNA in him can operate their technology. The same goes for Obesandjo (Eugene Kumbanyiwa), a Nigerian drug lord who believes consuming alien flesh in a ritualistic fashion will give him the power to do the same. Wikus’s only help comes from Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope) who distilled the liquid in the hopes of reactivating the mother ship and returning home.
The script was co-written by Blompkamp and Terri Tatchell, but the dialogue was all improvised. It’s a tricky proposition that’s handled incredibly well by the cast, especially the lead Sharlto Copley who has mainly worked in film as a producer. As Wikus, he isn’t a he-man superhero nor is he even an everyman hero; he’s more of a schmuck. He mugs for the camera during the opening like he’s Michael Scott on The Office.
As all good sci-fi is wanton to do, District 9 is filled with allegories involving xenophobia, immigration, human greed, and South Africa’s own history. The title of the picture comes from the Cape Town section of District 6 where over 60,000 minorities were forcibly removed by the government upon the institution of apartheid. Despite the highbrow themes, the third act turns into a series of special effects-laden action sequences. There have been many films that fail to live up to a great premise by descending into mindless violence, but District 9 isn’t one of them. The effects are realistic and incredibly well-done. The action is visceral and over-the-top but it’s hard not to enjoy all the exploding bodies and even death by flying pig. The power suits are way cooler than the ones in Avatar as are a lot of the weapons. You can see why Blomkamp was chosen to helm the proposed Halo flick.
If you missed District 9 in theaters, check it out on Blu-Ray. Shot in high definition digital, the film looks absolutely fantastic on BD.
Rating: ***
No comments:
Post a Comment