District 9 (2009) – Review

When used correctly, science fiction can be the optimum genre to use when examining what it means to be human in a variety of different ways, be it the way we treat each other in a historical sense or even the human condition itself. Step forward Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, an incendiary debut that touched down in theatres in 2009 that mixed together social commentary, Kafka-esque transformations and more kick-ass weaponry than a dozen, sci-fi, first-person-shooters to impressive effect.
Guided by Peter Jackson, who saw the in South African filmmaker a gift for world building (and possibly to atone for the collapsed Halo adaptation Blomkamp was supposed to helm), the result wasnt just one of the best movie’s of the year, but one of the greatest, modern sci-fi movies that exists, something that Blomkamp has been chasing ever since.

In an alternate 1982, the world was rocked when a massive alien space craft entered our atmosphere and slowly ground to a halt as it hovered above the city of Johannesburg. It hung there, unmoving for a couple of years and eventually the authorities managed to cut their way in only to find an alien lifeform that didn’t quite lend itself to the fanciful, fairy tale image of making first contact. The ship, as it turns out, was crammed with an alien dubbed with the rather derogatory name of “Prawns” so seemingly were a worker class whose leadership had apparently vanished into thin air.
Years later, we find the Prawns have been more trouble than they’re worth with around a million of them settled on our planet, generally being a violent nuisance to everyone. The majority live in a segregated community known as District 9 that’s little more than a slum and the corperation that’s been handling it all, MNU, has decided to evict all the Prawns and move them to the newly formed (and highly inferior) District 10.
One of the employees task to enter District 9 and hand out eviction notices is spineless ladder climber, Wikus van de Merwe, who had recently been promoted and is very chuffed to have a film crew following him around as he gleefully unleashes his bureaucratic shite upon these dim as a bulb creatures.
However, while he gloats over an illegal weapons cache he stumbles across, he takes a squirt in the face from a strange, black liquid contained in a flask and before you know it, his DNA starts to violently do the transformation mambo as it gradually shifts into something else. While the rapid loss of his humanity is obviously something of a shock, it also means that Wikus is able to work the DNA encoded Prawn weaponry that MNU and local crime syndicates have been stock piling for years and so the hapless schlub also has to go on the run or be dissected. His only hope: Christopher Johnson, an alien smarter than your average Prawn, who not only holds the secrets to reversing Wikus’ condition, but is also about to enact a master plan twenty years in the making…

The first thing you notice about District 9 – apart from that barely disguised allegory for apartheid, that is – is that when it comes to tangible, visceral world building, Blomkamp is something of a master as he builds something that’s horribly familiar and yet so fascinatingly different. Building on the 1988, cult cops and aliens movie Alien Nation (they share almost the exact same basic premise), Blomkamp gives us the type of world you can actually taste in the back of your throat as he takes things way beyond egg-headed extraterrestrials committing street crime and instead creates a super under-class that goes about its aimless business while they are abused, hated and taken advantage of from literally every angle.
The method of starting the movie with a mixture of interviews, news clips and handheld footage as a film crew follows Wikus around, gives the film a sence of stark realism, but when the actual story gains steam, the director isn’t afraid to smoothly switch to more conventional filmmaking in order to focus on the emotional aspects of the story. This drew some complaints when the film was first released as some felt Blomkamp should’ve shit or gotten off the pot when regarding the shooting style, but the director obviously has no interest in conforming, deciding to cram his political commentary with cave-dark humour, a fabulously unlikable leads and space age, blow out gun fights that sees alien weaponry wreak all kinds of mayhem on the human anatomy. Simply put. Blomkamp is going to do what Blomkamp is going to do and is willing to stick an offensive middle-claw up at anyone’s issues with his chosen style.

Helping the film along immensely is Sharlto Copley’s wildly eccentric performance as blustering, yes-man Wikus van de Mer who skillfully veers from uppity, desk jockey to biggoted prick (he jokes about “aborting” Prawn eggs while wiping out a nest), to pitiful mutant to cowardly action hero with a boundless amounts of energy. Simply put, he’s the battery that makes Blomkamp’s vision run and out of the continuing collaborations the two have had since, nothing comes close to this. Making the transition from ignorant bureaucrat to mech-driving action hero is made somewhat easier by the levels of Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell levels of indignity Blomkamp heap upon his lead, be it a Cronenbergian transformation that sees his arm look like something you’d send back to the kitchen in a Lobster restaurant, to the fact that MNA smear his name to protect themselves by claiming he’s been having illicit alien sex. Despite all the cowardly, shitty things we see him do, it’s still oddly tough to not feel a little sorry for him when he finds himself of the other side of the fence.
Still, possibly District 9’s greatest attribute is the Prawns themselves who, thanks to some CGI that still holds up today, are fascinating creatures; a race of aimless bug-people who all act like homeless crack heads as a planet lines up patiently to gleefully screw them over. But it’s plotting smart Prawn and diligent single dad, Christopher Johnson, who almost steals the show from Copely’s career-making gibbering and when they team up for an impromptu bout of buddy movie gunplay, the film hits even greater heights.
Shifting its political leaning into a magnificent showcase for every cool alien gun that the director can imagine, District 9 ends on a desperate running gun battle that’ll not only have you on the edge of your seat, but will have you belly laughing like a donkey as bodies explode like water balloons, pigs are used as lethal projectiles by a gravity gun and Wickus goes toe to toe with his newly christened oppressors while locked within a heavily armed Mecha suit that kicks incredible amounts of ass.

A bit heavy handed? Certainly. But in the years since, the only disappointments that have come from the creation of District 9 is that firstly, Blomkamp has frustratingly struggled to match it in his subsequent attempts at vividly designed sci-fi and secondly, we still, somehow, haven’t had District 10 yet. Still, as biting satires of man’s inhumanity to man go, it’s tough to beat the Prawns who scamper around this particular district.
The Prawn Identity, anyone?

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