District 9

[Pablo]

I was entertained.

Far too many F bombs, but they were pronounced FOO..... so it takes 10 or 12 = 1.

OK man is bad, but some men are worse than others. I can see why the Nigerians had some issues with this movie. Wowser. Anyway, yes there are some comparisons to Avatar....except it's here and almost now vs. there....you can't get instant love for the aliens, that was well done - and it matched the movie pace, in an odd way to look at it - they were there 20 years or something. The writers seem to do a good job of keeping you wondering about why they came to earth etc....why Johannesburg, etc.... why one leader emerges (from a ship of shiftless workers)....

Sure the stationary ship and the black goo (looks like well used oil ala X-files), and a bunch of borrowed sci-fi stuff were kinda hoakey, but......what will happen when the dad guy returns.........?

 

[Quattro Pete]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the sequel. Entertaining is probably a good word to describe it.

 

[Greggy_D]

I was a bit dismayed until the alien weapons made an appearance. Then the movie became entertaining for me. Pretty good ending which sets up a sequel quite well.

 

[buster]

I liked it.

 

[gathermewool]

I hadn't seen any previews nor heard anything about the movie before seeing it. I was really surprised how good it was, and was also thoroughly entertained. It had just enough story, heart and blowing up of stuff to make it a well-rounded movie for me.

 

[bretfraz]

I enjoyed it. I agree with the reviewers; the first half of the movie is excellent - fast paced, enough back story for viewers to understand what is going on, great special effects and costumes. The second half of the movie became predictable and a bit formulaic. The end of the movie was like a buddy-film-with-aliens version of "Lethal Weapon". I was let down somewhat.

Still, worth watching if you like a mix of sci-fi and action in your choice of flicks.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Pablo's taken over the movie review duties from you know who.

 

[andyd]

I'll wait 'til it comes to cable

 

[Pablo]

Hide your cat food until then!

 

[crinkles]

i think it was an excellent movie. saw it on DVD last night.

I think a lot of things are lost on the international community. I am from south africa and could get a lot of the other languages. and slang.

as for nigerians, you have to realise that there are millions of illegal immigrants from nigeria, zimbabwe and other african countries living in the slums and who stick together, usually ulitmately reverting to crime. they are also hated on by the local african communities. so what you see in the movie is just an exxageration of the actual situation.

i think the aliens being "shrimps" was maybe a bit outlandish, something more primate like would have been a lot more scary. nonetheless excellent stuff i really enjoyed it!

 

[Gary Allan]

I finally saw this on DVD last night (yes, I was waiting for it to show up on non-premium cable). The documentary back drop didn't really mean a whole lot until the end.

So, I'd say that I didn't enjoy the movie until the end made the front end of it make a lot more sense. It really took a very long and laborious route to arrive at the concluding revelation/realization (I guess climax in literary construction terms). "The Sixth Sense" was sorta like that, except that it frustrated you to the extreme where you were screaming "what's the point!!?" ..and then it slammed you. This wasn't nearly that abusive, but it didn't deceive you quite so much.

I hope I missed something and I'll look for it when I watch it again. Why would you park a transport and trap your workers inside ..and secretly repair it over 20 years (collecting the fluid) and then leave when you found out about medical experiments? Why not just leave to leave? Why would you want to hang out and get exploited, killed, ripped off, etc. when you apparently had alternatives? If you were just broke down, and trying to change a spare, and no one seemed to want you around anyway, why not ask for help to get the heck out of the neighborhood for good ..seeing as you have, albeit strained, dialog with the ruling authority?

Forgive me, I'm one of the slow, but deep thinkers. The pond itself may be shallow.

I can't recall the time line, but did the current Orkin commercials get a little help from this movie?

 

[Steve S]

It is a movie ,like all movies only mindless entertainment.

 

[greenaccord02]

That was indeed a pretty big plot hole...

 

[Summerwind]

I felt the same way..heard a fair amount of "good-hype" about it, watched it, and went "well, umm"....

 

[Gary Allan]

Well, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. It's just that I didn't enjoy the whole movie until nearer the end and not necessarily for the "blow 'em up action". I'd say the infection/morphing made things move more deliberately. Otherwise watching an annoyed bureaucracy, with it's charade/facade, engage in "alien management" (like wildlife management), just really didn't seem all that interesting after a while.

 

[Tempest]

It's been awhile since I've seen it, but as I recall, he got the fluid and it was stolen quickly afterward.

 

[Shannow]

Saw it on DVD a little while ago.

It was pretty OK. Reminded me of a hodgepodge of some prior works.

 

[Gary Allan]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
It's been awhile since I've seen it, but as I recall, he got the fluid and it was stolen quickly afterward.


Yes, but essentially the aliens arrived with everything that they left with. The command module apparently separated upon arrival for some odd reason (assumed damaged). So the chief insect just sat in the ground hiding for months until the humans, out of insatiable curiosity, broke in and found starving insects ..and liberated them from their death trap. Then the human community (apparently) fed them and sorta integrated then into the society and found them incompatible ..sequestered them ..neglected them ..etc..etc. Meanwhile, chief bug was searching for his lost fluid that was apparently scattered in various alien devices across the district ..all of which were present when they arrived. We didn't get to see chief bug act as a community leader

Now chief bug may have known the implications of seeking help from humans after he read the writing on the walls with seeing how humans regarded them and how they sought to adopt/adapt their technology, but it wouldn't explain the marooning of fellow bugs initially. Chief bug appeared to accept all abuses save for the medical experiments which appeared intolerable to him.

It would take an extremely tolerant and "bigger picture" (which we're not privy to) entity to display the compassion in many regards (his child, etc) while appearing very dispassionate in other respects about his race and how they're treated.

I found it darkly funny when the humans would do a would be drug bust when they found an incubation lab.

Perhaps it was just breaking down in the wrong neighborhood and trying to navigate your way out of it as discretely as possible while rolling with the punches.

 

[GeaugaFletcher]

Quote:
Perhaps it was just breaking down in the wrong neighborhood and trying to navigate your way out of it as discretely as possible while rolling with the punches.
That's exactly it. If they'd had everything they needed, they surely wouldn't have helplessly stayed in the mothership wallowing in their own poo, they were trapped with no recourse. Extracting the "go juice" was awfully labor intensive and his efforts could easily have been thwarted either by humans or some of the less civilized of his own kind (they have lazy, drunken louts, too). I don't think the "Chief bug" was on the control module when it fell. In any case, he was evidently more of an engineer than a leader and it wasn't until some time after the breakdown and trip plaentside that he'd figured out a way to get the [censored] off our rock. In this movie anyway, alien technology isn't magic, it's fraught with the same difficulties of maintenance and breakdown that our familiar stuff experiences and he had to make do with the relatively primitive tools at his disposal. Pretty much all of his decisions were the best (or only) course of action taking their circumstances into account.

Blomkamp's stuff is very good that way. It's (to me) quintessential science fiction - taking an unreal circumstance and exploring how things would play out if it really happened, normalizing the extraordinary. I remember reading a story about hiring vampires to work factory jobs. The factory owner provided them with all (ahem) sustenance and they eventually unionized, etc. etc. Good, funny story that explored the mundane activities and difficulties of a fantasy situation made real.

Consider human to bug communication - with vastly different physiology, it's simply impossible for one species to speak the other's language, so they both speak their own but listen to and comprehend the other's. A mundane but totally rational solution and an issue that I'd never thought about before.

The whole thing of course references the sequestration of "natives" in South Africa and the shanty town wasn't a set, it was the real thing.

 

[Gary Allan]

Quote:
his efforts could easily have been thwarted either by humans or some of the less civilized of his own kind (they have lazy, drunken louts, too).


I saw a more contemporary western. A US Marshall and his deputy were taking a native American (who was educated in the east) back to stand trial. At some point they came under native attack since this guy's scalp was apparently in demand. The deputy said, "I thought all indians were brothers. This guy also had a decent bounty on him, and they later came under attack by white men. The prisoner looked at the deputy and said, "I thought all white men were brothers".



Quote:
Blomkamp's stuff is very good that way. It's (to me) quintessential science fiction -


It does have its more refined appeal than being dazzled with..hmmmm....deus ex machina