WARNING: This review contains spoilers.
Like this summer’s Moon, District 9 is the brainchild of a first-time director who displays real talent. Neil Blomkamp (assisted as producer by mastermind Peter Jackson) has crafted an astonishing debut. One which places itself among the top science fiction films of the twenty-first century.
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The events of the film takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa where it has been twenty years since a spaceship miraculously appeared above the city and for some reason has remained immobile there ever since. Once the government made contact with the ship they discovered millions of starving aliens aboard — who they now refer to as “prawns”. Soon after they isolated them into a guarded reservation dubbed “District 9”, which soon becomes a slum in which the prawns are subject to dangerous thugs who take advantage of them. The agency who handles these aliens is named MNU. After years of rioting and complaints, MNU decides to relocate the prawns further from the city. Spearheading this operation is Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley). Wikus is a happily married and genuinely weak man who after raiding one of the houses becomes infected by an unfamiliar device that transforms him slowly into an alien. Wikus is soon quarantined and violently experimented on by the MNU. After breaking out of their facilities, his main goal becomes to find a cure for his infection so he can be reunited with his wife.
The first few minutes of the film — where we meet Wikus and are introduced to MNU and the prawns — are shot documentary style. Soon after this, the film transitions out of documentary style and becomes more or less a fugitive movie. The first act perfectly sets up the story showing Wikus as the bumbling working man whose persona gradually changes after his infection — a change which feels natural and genuine. Once his infection becomes known he is taken away to be tested and experimented on by MNU. The second and third acts — where Wikus is on the run — is where the film becomes more of an action film. He finds a possible way to be cured through an alien named Christopher. They develop a realistic friendship as Christopher also has a lot to fight for due to the fact he wants to save his fellow prawns and go home. While the film does become pretty much a nonstop action movie, each scene still consistently adds to these characters.
Sharlto Copley turns Wikus Van De Merwe into the perfect leading man. Starting off as the clueless desk clerk stooge, he’s similar to Murray Hewitt from The Flight of the Concords (only if Murray was subjected to working in an alien infested environment). The biggest accomplishment with Copley’s performance is that his transition into an action hero is believable. He builds up Wikus’ anger enough to believe that he would revolt after all the hardship he has experienced through MNU. His desire to be reunited with his wife drives him, but unfortunately that subplot doesn’t have much of an impact and falls ultimately flat.
Neil Blomkamp’s directorial debut has taken a thirty-million budget and made it look better than most of the summer blockbusters released this year. He has crafted genuinely photo-realistic aliens and has made them feel like actual living, breathing characters. He’s able to craft a developed character arc through Christopher — a completely CGI character. Its no easy feat to make a fully CG rendered character fully relatable and likable. Another strong point is how well he builds up suspense and ups the ante throughout the film. Blomkamp makes the second and third act feel like an adrenaline rush that doesn’t let up for a second. He allows each action set piece to top each other while each of them are equally exciting.
With top-notch direction, excellent performances and well developed ideas, this is one the best science fiction film to be released since Children of Men. There’s only one real gripe to be had with this film that holds it back: Wikus’s undeveloped relationship with his wife. Besides that fault, this is an original marvel to behold.