District 9

In Roger Eberts review of District 9 he states, "...the third act is disappointing, involving standard shoot-out action. No attempt is made to resolve the situation..." I can see why he thinks this. The plot, after establishing its ingenious premise, starts to get a little far-fetched, and hokey. But for me, this was exactly when the movie started to pick up.

The first part of the film is an intriguing, but depressing parable. The aliens are mysterious, gruesome, and ugly. They are introduced in the fake news footage, interest story, shaky hand cam way, that is annoying and disorienting, like watching a very depressing news report in the future. It unfolds this way, explaining the word view of how this poor ugly aliens are the biggest of undesirables, like Guantanamo prisoners with AIDS in the 80's times ten. Nobody wants them around. These aliens get no respect, and for a while we're not really sure if they deserve it.

Things get worse as the humans try to illegally evict them from there district, using violent force when necessary. This is about as entertaining as Schindler's List in South Africa with mutated walking-stick crab people. But then something happens, and I won't reveal what, but it changes the direction of the film and eventually gives it purpose. Things go horribly wrong for a central character. And when I say horribly, I mean it's pretty horrible. At this point the fake documentary style is thankfully abandoned and were watching a real horror show.

This is all very disturbing until another turnaround in the plot. This is when the film finally leaps to life and gives me characters to root for. There is alot of film left at this point but it does not get boring. Scene by scene, we watch more improbable scenarios play out. Strangely, the more improbable things got, the more fun I was having.

The aliens and protagonists are placed in the crossfire between militant corporation and Nigerian gangsters, who deal in alien weapons. This gets pretty brutal, my date noted that, at times it got the audience to cheer for the violence. And so it does, and while that's pretty gross, I think the standard action movie becomes a superlative mythos that is cathartic after all the heavy-handed politics. Honestly, I didn't want to see City of God, again, I was ready for a little escapism.

Much is made of the parable, and it is obvious that it was much influenced by Ditrict 6 while South Africa was under apartheid rule. Some say this is an uncomfortable analogy, and it is, what is comfortable about Apartheid? If this is really how whites saw the blacks it is disturbing, though I'd bet if those whites meet these alien prawns they might reconsider and find the blacks and cape-coloureds suddenly don't seem so bad.

This is alot to chew on, but I never really expected to movie to say anything about apartheid expect perhaps that it is a bad thing. I didn't expect the film to be particularly profound, and Peter Jackson the producer said above all it must be entertaining. By starting the film with the brain, and ending with the heart, the film is eventually, entertaining. We witness human beings and aliens being incinerated and turned into goo, but a surprising humanity runs through this film despite it's harsh brutality. We follow a terrifying metamorphesis, only to discover it is actually a characters evolution. In the same way, after I adjusted to the unsettling premise the film becomes surprising, thought-provoking, emotionally moving, and enthralling.