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Movie Review: District 9

Don’t miss

The aliens have arrived again on the silver screen. But this time surprisingly they have spared the holy country of America and they are not particularly in a fighting mood. Instead, their spaceship is kind of stuck in the skies of Johannesburg in South Africa. After about two months of inactivity, the human authorities enter the spaceship to find malnourished aliens.

The human beings decide to provide shelter to these 1.2 million ‘outsiders’ in District 9 of the city until they find a way to go back to their planet with seven moons. Twenty years pass by which see lethargy on the part of aliens while patience of local citizens towards aliens, which by now are called with the derogatory name ‘prawns’, fades away.

Finally, International Authority on Alien Affairs in its own vested interests decides to shift Aliens to another area. The decision gives rise to flash points between aliens and humans. The whole project takes an unexpected turn when the project leaderWikus Van De Merwe (played by Sharlto Copley) suffers mutation and becomes a prawn himself.

District 9 is not a typical sci-fi movie. Not only because it is not made in Hollywood but also because it is not too heavy on technical gobbledygook. The movie, for a change, ruthlessly focuses on the decision making process of human brain, which unfolds the selfish and untrustworthy way of human affairs.

Even though the movie is not associated with any of the big Hollywood studios, it delivers on the technical front. The screenplay is tight; the camera work is tighter. Actors don’t act; they live their roles. Clinton Shorter's background music is superb. It succeedes in capturing the various moods of characters under various situations.

The movie does have a lot of graphic violence, something Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9 could have avoided. So, if human heads being reduced to a pulp of blood in a flash makes you giddy, u need to be careful!

A must watch if you want to see a different angle to the alien stories.

Labels: Movies

posted by Ranjit @ 9/19/2009 11:24:00 pm