District 9 Review
Sunday, August 16. 2009
Science fiction as political commentary is an old theme, but one that is very difficult to achieve properly. Many stories have been too heavy handed with the message, making the narrative preachy and condescending. Many more have forgotten the value of a message entirely, replacing characters with props and development with explosions. It's a delicate balance that District 9 has managed to achieve quite well (click below to read the rest of the review WITH SPOILERS).
The combination of documentary-style footage and traditional movie camerawork worked better than I expected. The interviews brought us all up to speed on the situation quickly without an opening crawl or stilted dialog, and more importantly introduced us to Wikus Van De Merwe as a man with a family he loved and a job he was proud of. Seeing this combined with his hubris in the slums showed us that he wasn't the stereotypical "hero" or "villain" - he was a man with actual thoughts, feelings, and faults. This made several of his later behaviors much more believable: his acts of violence against Christopher and the MNU operatives were understandable (though not always justified).
I was also pleased to see a somewhat believable transformation sequence as Wikus turned from human to prawn. Most movies will have a character's entire skeletal structure recreated in minutes if not seconds. Wikus' transformation took place over several days, and included intense hunger, pain, loss of fingernails/hair/teeth, and skin lesions. The change wasn't pleasant, but it felt more realistic than many other sci-fi identity rewrites.
I do agree with the reviewers who have noted that the action-heavy second part of the movie didn't seem to mesh perfectly with the more narrative-driven first part. It was not so outlandish that it ruined the movie, but it did feel a bit jarring.
In the end, I thought District 9 was an excellent film and a nice change from the other sci-fi movies that we've seen this year.
Collector/Modeler Interest:
Shockingly, there are no 1/24 models of the current generation Hilux in plastic, metal, or resin. Hopefully this will change in the future, because the only thing close to what was used in the movie is Jada's Nissan Titan.
The combination of documentary-style footage and traditional movie camerawork worked better than I expected. The interviews brought us all up to speed on the situation quickly without an opening crawl or stilted dialog, and more importantly introduced us to Wikus Van De Merwe as a man with a family he loved and a job he was proud of. Seeing this combined with his hubris in the slums showed us that he wasn't the stereotypical "hero" or "villain" - he was a man with actual thoughts, feelings, and faults. This made several of his later behaviors much more believable: his acts of violence against Christopher and the MNU operatives were understandable (though not always justified).
I was also pleased to see a somewhat believable transformation sequence as Wikus turned from human to prawn. Most movies will have a character's entire skeletal structure recreated in minutes if not seconds. Wikus' transformation took place over several days, and included intense hunger, pain, loss of fingernails/hair/teeth, and skin lesions. The change wasn't pleasant, but it felt more realistic than many other sci-fi identity rewrites.
I do agree with the reviewers who have noted that the action-heavy second part of the movie didn't seem to mesh perfectly with the more narrative-driven first part. It was not so outlandish that it ruined the movie, but it did feel a bit jarring.
In the end, I thought District 9 was an excellent film and a nice change from the other sci-fi movies that we've seen this year.
Collector/Modeler Interest:
Shockingly, there are no 1/24 models of the current generation Hilux in plastic, metal, or resin. Hopefully this will change in the future, because the only thing close to what was used in the movie is Jada's Nissan Titan.
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