 |
|
|
|
District 9 (2009)
 email this review to a friend
Movie Review by Thom
September 13th, 2009
|  |
District 2.5
There's nothing worse than a film that aspires to nothing more than flash in the pan, opening weekend success. So when a film has a purpose within the folds of its narrative, there's always a chance for a magical kind of flick, for my money. The thing with District 9 is it has a purpose that, unfortunately, overpowers it from the first frame and creates a twofold problem. One is that if you watch movies with any kind of regularity, you should know exactly where the narrative is heading within fifteen seconds. Secondly, you want to like the movie more than it merits.
The first of what I could not reconcile as glaring plot holes, was the complete lack of representation on the part of the aliens, or "prawns". As one of the prawns, "Christopher", clearly demonstrates throughout the movie that they are every bit as capable of rational and emotional thinking as humans, capable of understanding, yet the majority of them seem content to scrap for tires and trade weapons that humans can't use for one hundred cans of cat food.
While I understand the parallel attempting to being drawn between the prawns and how alien we humans often find one another's cultures, this doesn't excuse the inconsistencies within the prawns themselves.
Have the prawns no leaders? Christopher certainly seemed to assume some kind of responsibility at the end of the film; why was no prawn front and center? If this is a question to be answered in what I can only assume will be the inevitable sequel, I call shenanigans on that.
Where were the hippies? Even though, as was truthfully toned in the movie Sahara, "No one cares what happens in Africa", they'd freaking care if there were aliens, I assure you. Even if the prawns had none of their own stepping up, there would be one of the scores of existing agencies (or a score more that would surface) to speak on their behalf, like the ACLU. There would be college students, idealists, religious whack-jobs, eager young journalists, and hippies piled like cordwood around District 9 in an effort to uncover the conspiracy even if there wasn't a conspiracy. And in this case, there is.
Another plot issue (spoilers here on out) is when the main character, Wikus, is faced with having to wait three years for his cure and betrays Christopher. Couple of questions here. First off, why did he not at least offer to take up the cause? "Cure me, and I will help your people NOW." There are plenty of human beings on this planet that wouldn't stand for that crap if it went public. Christopher may not have believed him, Wikus may not have been sincere, but that would've been my play, either way. Secondly, if you thought it was bunk to have Anakin flying a fighter at the end of The Phantom Menace, what's your take of Wikus flying the alien ship in District 9? And Christopher's son, cute little obstinate sob that he was, just letting it happen? Shenanigans again, I say.
Also, the entire conspiracy revolved around the human obsession with weapons that, while kind of cool (firecracker in a melon on a human scale), were hardly as groundbreaking as, um, say, THE MOTHERSHIP CAPABLE OF FASTER THAN LIGHT TRAVEL. Humans may be greedy, squabbling, bastards, and I hate corporate America as much as just about anyone, but they aren't retarded. There's WAY more scratch to be garnered from that ship than from ten thousand guns.
Good idea with good intentions, but if you start putting your thumb on just about any plot point in District 9 and it crumbles under the pressure of deliberate, lazy, unimaginative writing. And, of course, everyone loved it anyway.
email this review to a friend
Comment on this Review:
Sorry, you must be a member to add comments to reviews.
Join or Login. |
 | Lisa
Sep 15, 2009 11:04 AM
| |
"why was no prawn front and center?"
they said in the movie that the aliens on the ship where just worker drones, I figured that this was the reason for the lack of leadership.
I really enjoyed this film and I really like how it was set in South Africa and drew notes from the whole apartheid issue. |
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS
|
