District 9

After hearing more times than I care to recall that this is a film I need to see I finally got around to watching District 9. On blu-ray too! The opening twenty or so minutes being in documentary format became extremely annoying very quickly. It didn’t quite sit right with me and hindered my attempts to buy into the story and characters. As the majority of the film was not documentary it did feel a little odd to start with documentary for as long as it did and then to cut back to interviews occasionally, but that is the only issue I have. Visually it was phenomenal and on blu-ray it was sharp as a button. The aliens and their spacecraft seemed so authentic. Often you get special effects creatures that look as though they have been added in after effects by a small child with a crayon, but these aliens did not at one point looked false, fake, unrealistic or superimposed. My hat goes off to the special effects team.

The story was not immensely intelligent, complicated or different in all honesty, but the world created was fantastic. The whole District 9 site and the plan to relocate the aliens away from the city was eerily reminiscent of modern society – out of sight out of mind. The MNU’s hunt for Wikus and his alien arm aided by their PR team and false information in the media could easily have been a comment on USA’s use of the media in order to gain public favour for the Iraq war. The treatment of the aliens and their segregation and policing could easily have been a comment on South Africa’s current social climate. A lot of squalid townships surround regenerated cities and there are currently a lot of ‘aliens’ from around Africa attempting to settle in South Africa, but finding only poverty.

Whatever the political undertones this is a must see film if only for it’s sheer cinematic ambition and special effects wizardry. Especially on blu-ray. District 9 is what Independence Day could’ve been – interesting, amazing, visually stunning and not a hint of Hollywood cheese. I eagerly await the next cinematic offering from the films creators.