The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

Hey everyone!
Having said my posts may become less regular, here I am with the third entry in a week! Today's top story is this: District 9!!!! Yep, that's right, I've been to the cinema again, for the first time in about two months... I guess that's the price of working weekends! But let's save the personal stuff for later - It's review time!

Overall, I was truly amazed by this movie. I mean..... You remember my Star Trek review, right? Those who've just started following (I know you're out there!!) may want to flick back a few months. Well, District 9 was every bit as good as that. Not necessarily better, but certainly on a par with Trek.
The premise is that an alien mothership comes to rest over Johannesburg, and the creatures, known disrespectfully as "Prawns" by the locals, were sent into a slum area of the city, the eponymous District 9. The mothership, meanwhile, hovers ominously overhead. The film itself starts 20 years later, when the government have decided to relocate the aliens to the imaginatively-named District 10, which is essentially a Concentration Camp. The main character, whose name I forget, is in charge of moving them, but things soon.... well, go awry, to say the least! In my opinion, the ideas behind it are brilliant, refreshingly original and very different to bogstandard Sci-Fi. For a start, the whole movie is played out as a sort of documentary or news feature - There are CCTV videos, interviews, the whole lot! Secondly, and I'm sure someone else will highlight this if I don't, with it being Johannesburg, there are obvious parallels between the alien segregation and the real-world apartheid between white and black people. In this way, what could easily be, and does become to an extent, an all-out blow-'em-up, is also a comment on human society and the way we cope with new and unknown concepts.
Whilst we're on the subject of plot, it's worth highlighting a few shortcomings. The story itself isn't especially challenging. If you were expecting some time-travel, everything-fits-together-in-the-end mystery, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed for the most part. On top of that, I found that certain elements were quite underdeveloped, and this made them irrelevant to the plot. The whole storyline between him and his wife, for instance. From my own point of view, these details didn't really contribute anything to the plot, apart from making his sadness even more complete. I expected the propaganda and censorship elements to play a more important role as well, but there are obviously quite a few bits and pieces which ended up on the cutting room floor. With regards to the showdown at the end, I felt it dragged on a little to long. I mean, it was cool, quite Iron-Man-esque (more than you'd expect... but forget I said that!), but after so many explosions and deaths, you started thinking, "I get the idea, but what is this doing for the plot?" Nevertheless, it was still quite an epic duel, as epic duels go.
Effects wise, I have no qualms whatsoever. The aliens seem to blend perfectly into the real-world surroundings, and the mothership was suitably ominous as well. The fact that they managed to do all this and make it look like it was on the news, CCTV, etc. is quite incredible, in my opinion.
The Fear Factor is also quite high in District 9. Fear and distress. I can see why it's a fifteen - quite a bit of blood, weird experimenting, stuff like that. And I tell you, that guy's hand... When he took the bandage off... I must have jumed about ten feet off the ground! Some of the themes dealt with are quite discomforting, I found as well, and it's good that they are, because I think it helps people become more aware of what actually is happening to some people now. Just... the whole "plight of the aliens" thing, and how they were obviously refugees of some kind so we should show them more consideration, and whatever.
All in all, I know I've skimmed over a lot of stuff, but this really is a must-see movie. Not quite the movie of the year, in my opinion, but definitely worth paying money to see it on the big screen!

... Just make sure you go at the weekend! Bearing in mind it's been out for a month or so, and it was Wednesday today, so everyone else was at work, I was the only one in the cinema! Literally, there was 1 other guy who came in a third of the way through, expressed his displeasure and left about two thirds of the way through. Luckily, however, I was spared the sobering experience of eating alone (never doing that again!), as Mum had some tea plated up at home! She's great! I also managed to finally get my hands on Isabel Allende's version of Zorro, which i can get stuck into after Charlotte Grey... and Bond... and half a dozen other books, probably! Ah well, time for an early night, methinks!

See you all soon!

Jack