District 9

Yesterday Jenny and I went to see Neill Blomkamp's District 9 (not to be confused with Shane Acker's 9, which I also saw last week, and would not recommend). It was in a French theater (obviously) and it was in English with French subtitles. The theater was weird, because instead of the room sloping down toward the screen, it was sloped up, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, District 9 was very good. I'd been looking forward to it more than just about any other movie this summer ever since the trailer came out online some time last spring, and I can't believe it took me this long to finally see it. I think it's going to come in at number 3 on my top movies of the summer, behind Star Trek and Inglourious Basterds, although it wasn't quite as amazing as I thought it might be. But that's probably my own fault for letting my hopes get so high every time I see a good trailer. That seems to be happening to me a lot recently. Terminator: Salvation and 9 were particularly disappointing in terms of the final product completely failing to live up to the promise displayed in the trailer. But District 9 was definitely far superior to both of those.

District 9 is the kind of science fiction I really enjoy - rather than doing what a lot of science fiction does and creating an entire universe in which everything is invented and fantastical, it takes one radical element and inserts it into the real world, and uses the way that element affects its world to examine various issues that are relevant not only to the story but to the world in which we actually live.

I don't want to get into the plot too much for the sake of people who haven't yet seen it, but suffice it to say that the acting and special effects are top-notch, and the originality of the premise is quite refreshing - unlike approximately 99% of movies that are made nowadays, it isn't based on a book or a TV show or another movie from 15 years ago, it is an entirely original idea from first-time director Blomkamp, and as an audience member, you don't see every twist and turn of the plot coming a mile away. I also enjoyed the way that the narrative used documentary-style footage at certain points, yet didn't adhere to the style so strictly that it hindered the telling of the story.

District 9 is, in my mind, in the same vein as movies like Jurassic Park and Children of Men - these movies show a very realistic and compelling view of what it would actually be like if dinosaurs were cloned, or if humanity lost the ability to reproduce, or if aliens landed in South Africa. They take a somewhat outlandish idea, but use that idea to shed light on the way things really are, and tell a good story at the same time. Plot is not sacrificed for the sake of spectacle, yet there is still excellent action and visuals. The main thing that separates a movie like District 9 from the typical action/science fiction fare produced these days is that it is a movie that is based on an interesting idea, and the action and special effects follow that idea, and are used to help develop it, rather than being there simply to look good on screen.