District 9

– Three and a half stars (out of four)
– Rated R for bloody violence and pervasive language.
– Who’s going to like it: science fiction geeks, action fans, people who love great, flawless special effects and well-written, acted and directed movies

The best sci-fi action flick since Aliens

A few years back, several major film studios, a large computer company and a production team headed by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) were in the process of creating an epic film based on the his XBOX video game Halo. After months of prep work, the project was canceled. Peter Jackson and his team had done months of work for nothing. The following day, he and director Neill Blomkamp, a South African native, decided to apply their work to an original story based a series of short films that Blomkamp had created revolving around an alien internment camp in Johannesburg (check out Alive in Joburg on YouTube). Chock full of Haloisms, their film is called District 9.

The trailers for District 9 are perfect. The less you know, the better. The trailers reveal nothing about the plot of the film, so neither will I. All you need to know is that in the ’80s, a massive ship filled with a million aliens, derogatorily named “Prawns,” came to rest in the airspace above Johannesburg, South Africa. Since then, the Prawns have procreated to nearly two million and have turned the city into a slum. To protect the humans, all Prawns have been relocated to a well-guarded and fenced-in area known as District 9, but since then, the violence and crime has begun to spread all over the city. Now, twenty-something years later, a team of humans is being sent in to District 9 to evict and move the Prawns to a remote camp 200 kilometers away where they can have no effect on human society.

That’s all you need to know. Fifteen minutes into the film, you’ll get into the plot and be glad that you knew nothing of what’s to come. Enjoy!

District 9 begins and ends as a documentary that sets up and closes the story. While this may appear as a distraction, fear not – for it works perfectly. You wont even notice the seam when it transitions from documentary to third-person, and back again.

While District 9 had a fairly small budget of only $30 million, I’d say it’s got the best special effects of any of this summer’s blockbusters – and there are lots of visual effects shots to behold. It always looks amazing. There’s not a single scene in the movie where you’ll think it looks fake or cheesy. I dare you to try and determine what’s real and what’s not.

If you can handle some violence and language, then I definitly recommend District 9 for this weekend. It’s one of this year’s best movies. There’s a great story, fun action and it looks fantastic.

Photo credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment