Film Short Take - DISTRICT 9

The Bullet and the Bottom Line: A bureaucratic drone discovers what is really going on in the refuge camp that is home to some very alien illegals. This film is either too smart to be dumb fun or not smart enough to sit through with a working brain. Very frustrating.

(caution, some minor spoilers are below)


I have no problem with the slow start of District 9 and enjoyed the middle section that includes the protagonist's inevitable transition to fugitive and the return raid on the lab, but the whole 3rd act has problems. Director Neill Blomkamp, a former CGI supervisor, does well conveying a very realistic-seeming take on extraterrestrials and their practical technology, but the man cannot shoot action sequences clearly.

Then there's the issue of the bio-mechanical weapons. I can accept that a possible reason why the aliens don't simply use their WAY superior firepower to fight back is because A) most are of the worker caste B) as such they have no higher function motivation (hence the aimless destruction, like bored 12 year olds) and C) it's tied to DNA.

But if it's tied to specific DNA, how can Wikus (Sharlto Copley) then use them?

Which means the filmmakers are doing the same dodge that the BSG ones did: claiming that they are writing for a more sophisticated audience, but soon as you start seeing the problems they claim "hey, it's just a movie."

There's also the troubling aspect that a South African film doesn't have a single major black character other than the Nigerian Warlord. Sure, Wikus stumbles around in the beginning with black bureaucrat sidekick and their black armed escort, but after 20 minutes that's it. Considering how lily white producer Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings was, this isn't surprising.

Better than much of what came out this summer, but brother is that not saying much...