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District 9
This is a review of the new movie District 9, directed by Neill Blomkamp and produced by the great Peter Jackson, who was made particularly famous for his contribution to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Having seen the trailer for the movie I was extremely excited to watch it. When I saw that it was produced by Peter Jackson I was even more eager for its release. I’m not what you would call a sci-fi fan but I can appreciate a good movie and I just loved the Lord of the Rings.
I had so many expectations of the movie purely because it was in some way directly associated with Peter Jackson. I understood that it was unrealistic to expect him to top the trilogy as they were and are considered amongst the best movies of all time.
That said, I did expect a lot more than I got from the movie. The thing that annoyed me the most was the fact that there seemed to be endless holes in the plot. You find yourself sitting and thinking ‘that doesn’t make sense’ and there are even blatant essential parts to the movie that remain unexplained.
If you have seen the trailer you will by now realize that the movie is based on the events during the Apartheid. A quick Wikipedia search reveals that Jackson was hoping for a film adaptation of the popular game Halo. In addition to this already complex scene they throw in some aliens that bizarrely resemble Zoidberg from Futurama.
The most irritating part of the movie is that you wait and wait for an explanation of why the aliens came. These aliens appear from nowhere and there is no offer of an explanation as to why they are there or where they came from.
My partner and I argued about this for some time as he said that I just didn’t ‘get’ the concept. That because it was based on the apartheid there was no need for an explanation of the alien’s presence.
I beg to differ because if the movie is based on the apartheid then fantastic, my issue is that you can’t take a movie that is based on the apartheid, throw in some aliens for good measure and expect the plot to be self-explanatory.
There are some other points that irritated me for instance the main character had a dense South African accent which was extremely difficult to understand. What aggravated me further was that I could understand the rest of the African cast yet they chose the guy with the most slurred accent to play the leading role.
The final gripe I have with this movie is that whilst it is a sci-fi movie, the parts that relate to everyday life are very farfetched. They are supposed to appear as if nothing has changed, the world carries on how it was before except there are now aliens. The dialogue is poor and the simple expectation for us to accept that government bodies, parliamentary members etc would behave in a certain manner is just ridiculous.
Overall I was extremely disappointed with the movie and by the end I felt like writing a letter to Mr Jackson to tell him how rubbish his film was!
I would give the movie a six out of ten. Purely because the graphics were fantastic, the concept was mind blowing yet they forgot to ensure that the basics were in place beforehand.
Definitely worth a watch to understand what I mean because without spoiling the whole movie you can’t really get what it is I’m talking about unless you’ve seen it for yourself.
15 Comments
I think I’ll just take your word for it. Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.
nice one share..Great work..
Glad to read your review.
Normally I hate spoilers but I’m sort of glad you did give me spoilers in here because I’d hate to spend 10 quid and watch a bad film. It’s strange that they don’t explain the aliens because when I watched the trailer, I thought aliens would be the focus point but South Africa left me pondering. Good review and thanks for the heads up!
thanks for the review..had mixed feelings at first,i guess this is like the happening then, it brought me down:(
What an interesting review. I haven’t seen District 9 yet. I wasn’t sure if it was the type of movie that I would want to see, but I would be curious to see the plot holes. I like to watch movies and pick out things in it that don’t make sense.
Sorry you didn’t care for the movie. I, on the other hand, felt that it was an instant science fiction classic. The presence of the aliens was explained, as they referenced the fact that the ship was disabled and had no fuel a number of times. A simple accident caused them to come to Earth. I also felt that Sharlto Copely acting was supurb, accent or not. I think this movie was about as far from rubbish as it is possible to get. I do hope you enjoy your next movie going experience better.
Great article! I actually didn’t care for the movie either because I really did not understand what was going on and I was lost the majority of the movie. I thought it was going to be good because the commercials made the movie look decent but I could have went to see Final Destination 4 and got my monies worth! Great write!
Movies that rely on special effects often forget about dialogue and plot.
Sounds like an interesting movie,
UpNorthReviewer:
I didn’t want to provide too many spoilers to be honest which is why I couldn’t really explain myself but as you’ve gone and ruined it what the heck.
The ‘control module’ that fell from the ship was never found, nor was it explained whether or not it was programmed to fall or simply fell by accident.
Note that the control module fell whilst they were hovering over Johannesburg anyway so explain to me how this accident caused them to be there before the module fell?
Then the alien called “Christopher” and his friend that die are talking when they find some part containing the fuel, that we can only assume is the aforementioned control module even though there is no indication that this is the case. The one that dies says: “20 years and our plan is realized now?” What plan? Do we ever find out? No.
I can assure you that because I have a slow streaming computer I watched this film far too many times for my own health in an attempt to get to the end.
There is NO explanation of why the aliens were there, only the cause for their stay. Then there’s the fact that they had a mini ship within the mother ship. Why the hell would they starve inside the mother ship for three months if they had a means of seeking help?
The last quite annoying issue is that there was an outbreak of weapon selling amongst the aliens and Nigerians. The weapons were made by the aliens, for use of only the aliens, made with alien material.
All that considered, and the fact that the government rescued the aliens using their own ships, begs the question why would any self-respecting government hand over alien weaponry to some 1 million aliens who have landed in their country and simply say “Yeah no problems mate sell the on to who you like I don’t care” The simple fact is they wouldn’t have been given said weapons to begin with.
They would have been confiscated until the aliens intentions were realized and the fact that Africa has waaaay too many firearms anyway, the government would never permit to be released onto the streets.
So there you have it, wide open, didn’t want to spoil it but had to prove my point. Tenacity is not one of my best qualities but now you can see that there are diabolically colossal holes in the plot and as such the film makes no sense.
This was probably the worst sci-fi movie I’ve ever seen, and that’s a bold statement for me.
Peter Jackson, you suck.
I bid you good day sir. (I’ll take my bow now if you don’t mind)
Good review. Thanks for the spoiler, in this case Emma, it doesn’t sound too hot.
This film is great, go watch it. It is flawed but so are most films. If you are worried about not understanding the lead character’s accent don’t watch the film on your computer watch it in the cinema or wait for the dvd, the sound quality is bound to be better. I watched it in the cinema and had no problems. The aliens are simply refugees, worrying about the exact mechanism for their arrival is pointless. The film is about our treatment of refugees with a bit of apartheid mixed in. Also, if why they came was explained explicitly there would be very little suspense regarding what their motivation is. The reviewer is a little confused, the relationship between the mini-ship and the control module is pretty obvious and so is the 20 year plan.
The sound quality was awesome, as I stated before I understood the rest of the characters perfectly. I also explained that I watched the movie again and again and again to see if I’d missed a defining moment in the movie…no such defining moment came.
“Worrying about the exact Mechanism for their arrival is pointless”.
Ok so an alien ship hovers over Johannesburg for no reason and I’m just supposed to accept it as part of the movie? Like ok it’s there, don’t worry about how it got there, it’s not really an issue. If the film is going to feel real then you need to accept that in real life you would need an explanation for why 1 million aliens had just descended over your city-would you not?
The only suggestion why the whole ‘why they came’ issue would be that they we’re saving that answer for the sequel. As they’ve already said they’ll only make a sequel if this is successful that’s obviously not the case.
The reviewer is not confused, the reviewer demands clarity.
Well, I say I wasn’t confused until I read your post. The relationship between the module and the mini ship? The module fell from the mother ship and had absolutely nothing to do with the mini ship so I’m starting to wonder if it may be you that is confused sir.
The 20 year plan has no mention other than “20 years and our plan is finally realized”…what plan would that be then Mr alien? It seems you forgot to mention it to us all.
A review is a personal opinion of a movie, if having my own opinion of how a movie is flawed makes me ‘confused’ then jeez, what the hell am I writing for anyway?
I assumed the control module was the mini-ship otherwise there was no explanation of where the mini-ship came from. The plan was to collect enough fluid to fix the control module. I got the impression that most of the characters did not know why the aliens arrived, which fitted with their lack of compassion, understanding and their desire for the aliens to leave. There must have been a reason unrelated to the control module for their arrival otherwise you would think they could have fixed it in space. Maybe they had just run out of catfood and wanted somewhere to hang out while Christopher went to the interstellar petshop.
That robot thing being on Earth, now that was ridiculous.