District 9

Rating: ***1/2 (out of 4)
Director: Neil Blomkamp
Cast: Sharlto Copely, Jason Cope, David James

After my thrashing of 'Transformers 2', I have been looking forward to a perfect counterpart to that, something that works within similar subject matter and aim to achieve the same goal, that is, to entertain, and yet did it with flying colours. Here it is, 'District 9' is one such movie.

A giant space ship hovered over Johannesburgh. Inside the space ship, close to a million of aliens were starving to death. Sympathetic South African decided to relocate the aliens to 'District 9', a slum-like location not unlike a refugee camp.

The aliens are called 'prawns' by the human, because that's what they resemble. The residents of Johannesburgh eventually grew wary of the aliens who live like gangsters, and they want them out. The goverment decides to relocate the aliens to District 10, a concerntration camp out of town. The dangerous relocation operation is outsourced to a private security firm called Multinational United (MNU).

Despite the intriguing sci-fi premise that evokes parallel to our treatment of human refugee and the racial segregation policy under apartheid, the movie is really more interested about being a standard fugitive action thrill ride. The relocation operation is handed by a dedicated and honest agent named Vikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copely). Considerting the hostility of the aliens towards the eviction order, the operation is hardly lucrative business to MNU. What draws MNU to the job, is the prospect of harnessing the secret of the biological based alien weaponary, which is not operatable by human, only the aliens are able to operate them.

Something went wrong during the operation, and Vikus is turning into a prawn, and find himself able to operate the alien weapons. Both MNU and Nigerian gangsters set out to hunt him down as a key asset to uncover the secret of the alien weapons. Vikus turned fugitive and took refugee in District 9, and foud an unlikely ally in a prawn named Christopher Johnson and his son.

'District 9' isn't exactly a philosophical science fiction. It has an intelligent sci-fi premise that serves as a parable for some social commentary, but ultimately it is a formulaic mad-operation-goes-wrong-and-good-guy-turns-fugitive type of standard piece, as in Michael Bay's 'The Island'. It is also meant to be an action-packed entertainment with special effect as the centre piece, as in 'Transformers 2', but what a huge difference in terms of quality. 'District 9' has an intelligent sci-fi premise, a documentary-like narrative style that lends realism to the film, a protagonist in Vikus whom we believe in and care for, an emotional core in Vikus's relationship with Christopher the alien and his son, and awesome special effects. It is quite a complete package, scoring in each of the departments. A special mention to the special effects, that's what special effects ought to be; visually fascinating and felt necessary in the context of the story, a striking contrast as compared to Transformers 2's excessive, noisy, incomprehensible, seonsors-numbing special effects.

The plot may be formulaic, and the material may be mostly standard genre piece. That's the kind of film producer Peter Jackson and director Neil Blomkamp want to make and have made to very good effect. The lightness in its substance is hardly a problem in view of the skillful execution. Throughly entertaining and a rare commercial gem.