During a major and suicidial mission towards the climax of the film, the main protagonist has to enter his former work offices to retrieve the MacGuffin. To get to the probable location where it is hidden, Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) has enter his pin number at multiple locked doors. Except for this possible plot hole, DISTRICT 9 is a very well made science fiction film and certainly one of the absolute best of the year.
Many detractors have voiced about whether or not this is a truly original work of fiction and have to try to compare it to previous films. Though they seem to forget that nothing produced today in the film industry can truly be new, they also neglect that this isn't an American or a Hollywood production. It is a South African film set in South Africa, and produced with only $30 million dollars. The film is richly in deep with the South African culture, language, and history and doesn't feel the need to fully address any outside audiences. Director and Co-Writer Neill Blomkamp has made an interesting take on the old apartheid system that still haunts the nation while also making a strong statement that human beings are the antagonists and are at risk of self-destruction.
The introduction starts off as a finely produced documentary on the back story of this "alien invasion." A giant alien craft has been hovering over Johannesburg for twenty years and has remained docile. The alien beings left alive in it were moved out and into a temporary relief camp. Due to some hostile interactions, their strange behavior to steal objects and ugly outside appearance, their relief area was turned into a regulated slum and prison. These aliens, dubbed "Prawns" by the discriminating human population, are now to be relocated to a new and segregated environment.
The human focus of the feature is the previously mentioned Wikus, who is the head of human-alien affairs and the leader of the eviction mission. The documentary film within the film shows him to be a well-hearted but dumb and offended citizen who wants to make the situation peaceful but also has some disdain for the Prawns. After coming into contact with the MacGuffin, a cylinder capable of powering up a hidden machine, he slowly is transformed into one of them to the horrors of his peers. This of course makes him valuable to his company's leaders and scientists since the Prawn's destructive hand-held weapons can only be fired by their DNA. By this time, the documentary is stopped except for a couple interjections and the film follows his escape and new relationship with a sharp-minded Prawn in the slums.
I could go on about the apartheid similarities but they are obvious to note and everyone has already done so. What many seem to forget is the military and weapon sub-plot; Wikus' company is also one of top manufacturers of weapon hardware and they and separate independent groups want to control these new resources of destruction. The viewer sees how everything has to experiment on to find the solution through the corporation while a Nigerian mob simply hordes it until their belief in a false voodoo will grant them the power. This constant craving of hardware and personal and financial gain keeps growing throughout the film and when it turns into a full on military war film at the end, it is rightly justified. Our obsession with the power of weaponry is another clear example of the problems of humanity.
Sharlto Copley certainly deserves an Academy award nomination or at least a Golden Globe for his performance. For a non-professional actor, he takes the script's complex characterization of Wikus and makes him the best example of a human being: striving to be optimistic and friendly with different cultures yet still selfish and lets his anger and sorrow overtake his thoughts. The rest of the unknown actors, at least to American audiences, are fine in their performances. The Prawns were done strictly in CG and at first they look a bit cheap but the narrative and cinematography eventually hides this fact. Blomkamp does well in creating a paranoid world with many different camera techniques and the action sequences are always thrilling and exciting.
On a final note, I'll address the controversy of the Nigerians. While I did take a note of some people being offended by them, these characters seem designed to be a destructive human environment to fully interact with the Prawns and they just happen to be Nigerian. The gang's greed of weaponry and religious aspirations are brought to make the film's story more organtic and shouldn't confuse audiences with actual Nigerians.
FINAL REVIEW: 5 / 5
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