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;; ,atH e K5’ lst h 0( W lpoffCE! J
DISTRICT 9 GOES T011
DISTRICT 9 (R) I will not fill your minds
with ringing, hyperbolic endorsements such
as, “District 9 Is the Best Movie This Year!"
Instead, I'll go with, “District 9 Is the Freshest
Sci-Fi Since Pitch Black" How refreshing it is
to have a big summer movie that's neither a
sequel nor the big-s^reen adventures of plastic
action figures popular in the 1980s.
For the past 20 years, insectile aliens,
derisively nicknamed "Prawns," have
resided in slums constructed just outside of
Johannesburg. (They arrived in an alternate
history 1982. Considering apartheid did not
end until 1994 in real life, one must assume
the arrival of aliens positively impacted black
South Africans by speeding up the process.) It
into campy sex-bombs (Showgirls). Anyone
who still talks about the cinematic merits of
Robocop and Starship Troopers will soon add
District 9 to the conversation table.
Both Verhoeven and Blomkamp drench their
biting social satires in blood and guts. District
9 proudly earns its R rating and then some.
The Prawns constructed some highly effective
weapons. People don't just die; they goop-
ily explode. But where Verhoeven's WWII-era
childhood left him with dueling fascinations
with fascism and Jesus, Blomkamp's hang-ups
revolve around apartheid and race relations.
Having seen man's treatment of his fellow
man, he has no problems imagining the awful
things we would do to those not look like us.
seems their mothership ran out of gas some
where south of the equator, and they're on a
permanent vacation. This new underclass of
illegal aliens anger the populace. They don't
look like us (something upon which both black
and white South Africans can easily agree),
and the government must waste valuable
resources caring for them. Riots break out.
Aliens die. People die. Finally, the South-
African government tires of the political head
ache and hires private military corporation
MNU (Multi-National United) to relocate the
Prawns from the outskirts of Johannesburg to
a specially constructed concentration camp.
Problems arise when paper-pusher Wikus
Van Der Merwe (newcomer Sharlto Copley) is
appointed to head the relocation operation
by his corporate exec father-in-law. While
attempting to get alien signatures on the
proper forms, Wikus contracts an alien virus
that mutates his DNA. The only success
ful human-alien hybrid in the world, Wikus
becomes*the object of everyone's attention.
MNU desires him for his weapon capabilities.
The stockpiles of alien technology cannot
be used by human hands. A Nigerian warlord
wants to eat him and absorb his power.
The only person (?) to whom Wikus
can turn is the innocuously named Prawn,
Christopher Johnson, who has spent the last
20 years working toward escaping Earth.-
Single dad Christopher needs Wikus' help to
get his kid, the cutest alien since E.T. phoned
home, off the planet. The little Prawn and his
sympathetic papa remedy one of the film's
potential flaws, unappealing aliens.
South-African writer-director Neill
Blomkamp's aliens-among-us romp blasts into
the upper echelons of modern science-fiction
allegory. Blomkamp might be the next Paul
Vdrhoeven, a high-handed compliment despite
being sullied by the Dutch filmmaker's forays
District 9 is also the best video game
adaptation ever made, despite its lacking an
actual video game to adapt. Funnily, most
of the big-name critics fawning over—or at
least reacting positively to—the film note the
originality of its concept. Any remotely aware
gamer who owns a PS2/3 or Xbox 360 will
have played some version of District 9's tale
before. It's no wonder producer Peter Jackson
hired Blomkamp to helm the presently paused
Halo movie; he has already shown us what it
would look like.
District 9 contains all of the various game-
play modes popular in the FPS (first-person
shooter) genre. Wikus and Christopher storm
through a building, wielding alien guns that
resemble the cornucopia of firearms stumbled
upon in Halo; Wikus and Christopher escape in
a heavily armored vehicle while being chased
by a more heavily armed helicopter; Wikus
hops into a giant, robotic, heavily armed
and armored (what else?) exoskeleton. Were
District 9 a video game, it would not be Halo.
More brainy than brawny, D9 has more in com
mon with Valve's highly acclaimed Half-Life
series than Microsoft's killer app.
Blomkamp and Jackson have a potential
cottage industry in their hands. The film is
naturally sequel-ready (what genre movie
doesn't have franchise aspirations these
days?), but the bigger money can be made in
tie-ins. District 9 opens up a whole new uni
verse to be explored by books and an actual
video game. Why are the aliens here? Where
did they come from? Why couldn't they leave?
What is life in the alien refugee camp like?
That I'd like to know the answers to those
questions speaks loudest about District 9, as a
film and as a potential phenomenon, be-it cult
or mainstream.
Drew Wheeler
16 FLAGPOLE.COM • AUGUST 19,2009