I was intrigued when District 9 first came out, but like most movies, I never got the chance to actually go see it. This one was tackled one lazy weekend home from college when my dad rented a bunch of movies, & my brother kept talking about how much he loved it & how much he thought I'd like it.
It's one for the sci-fi fans, for sure.
It's set up like a documentary, which seems to be a growing trend. But I think District 9 really nailed this one, because it's quite convincing & has the advantage of putting you right in the middle of the action, & there's quite a bit of that. It kind of loses some of the documentary feel around the middle to the end of the movie, but that's because it shifts more to Wikus' point of view.
Set & filmed in South Africa, the movie is centered around aliens who just kind of show up one day, & government agencies & organizations are set up to accommodate them. District 9 is sort of housing for them, & it's basically a slum. Wikus works for one of the organizations & is sent out one day to convince the aliens to relocate to what is later described by Wikus as a concentration camp. And with that, the movie also becomes a sort of social & political commentary. Funny how sci fi seems to do that so well. Anyway, things get a bit chaotic. Overall, it wasn't quite what I was expecting, but I can't say much else about that without completely ruining the rest of the movie.
But here's what I can say.
Sharlto Copley, who plays Wikus, is seriously freakin' amazing. For starters, his accent is awesome. Beyond that, he's a seriously unbelievable actor, & this was the first movie he'd ever been in, which is completely ridiculous because seriously, I can't say it enough, he blew me away. His character goes through such a range of things & he has to do so much, & Sharlto as an actor pulls it off amazingly. I'm not afraid to go out there & say that this movie wouldn't be as strong as it is without him. Whenever I talk about this movie, I always, without fail, bring up Sharlto.
It's also pretty impressive visually. Every single thing looks real. I believe they tried to use little CGI, but regardless, it never feels like you're watching tons of ridiculous CGI. And where make-up is used, it's also incredibly good. I'm always amazed by the things people can do with prosthetics & some make-up.
It's also pretty action-packed. Plenty of things blowing up, & plenty of graphic violence.
I really liked it, & I definitely highly recommend it. However, try to kind of forget everything you expect from it in the previews, because they don't do it much justice & do little in terms of setting up what actually happens. Expectations might screw this one up. Just jump right into it & enjoy.
And when you have, or if you've already seen it, be sure to check out www.fookinprawns.net. It's full of just little sound clips from the movie, which is awesome because 1) some of them, especially out of the context of the movie, are surprisingly hilarious & 2) Sharlto's bitchin' accent! I could listen to him talk for days. I'm not even kidding.
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2 comments:
My best British friend likes to make people guess where he's from, and a lot of people guess South Africa before they guess England. (After guessing Australia, natch.) That always boggles my mind, because these people have obviously never heard the SA accent in all its Dutch glory. It's a little bonkers.
I love how Sharlto went from this to The A-Team. How's that for a step up?
What I liked most was how they managed to make the story emotional. You don't really expect that from sci-fi. Or I don't, anyway. But I really did like this film, it was really well done.
I think good sci fi is able to get that emotional factor, but typically, that's not what it's known for. I had a class on sci fi literature that was really interesting. But yeah, this did it really well.
I think Sharlto's got a lot of potential.
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