When I first heard the premise for District 9 I was keen to see it, then I saw the previews and it became something I could've either seen or not and not really cared. Now that I've seen it I'm glad I did.
Ok, so it's very predictable from the start what's going to happen but somehow that's ok because instead of being a standard actiony sci-fi kinda alien movie the story it tells is actually quite interesting and touching in bizarre ways. Of course you know from the start that Wikus is pretty much screwed and he's going to be the cliche "hero" who is against the aliens to start with but ends up seeing their side of things and sorta becomes a champion for them. Of course you know that 99.99% of the humans are going to be portrayed as evil money grubbers with not a care about the aliens and of course you know that there's not going to be a "happy ending" but somehow you get sucked in and start caring what happens.
The movie's main failing is that it doesn't QUITE get you to care enough and that's because it can't seem to decide what kind of movie it's supposed to be. One minute it's action, one minute it's drama, next minute it's comedy and the next it's a buddy film.
Where it succeeds however is when it shows the casual callousness of the humans and the plight of the "prawns", especially "Christopher" who seems to be the only prawn with a personality aside from his son who appears mostly for cuteness. The attitudes of the humans towards the prawns who they treat worse than a mongrel dog really does get to you a bit but because "Christopher" and his son are really the only vehicles in which to explore this it doesn't quite reach the level I think it was trying for (though I did feel sorry for the one who didn't understand what an eviction was). Admittedly I was sitting there going "You have to go back for Christopher!" so evidently it got to ME enough anyway. Also, I really liked that Wikus was VERY human and he didn't have a change of heart where you'd normally think it'd be in the movie, it actually took him time and experience as if the character was a real person.
For the most part it's not a real "special effects movie" that you NEED to see on the big screen but the climax is quite good in the special effects department and was actually quite fun.
All in all I really liked it and will definitely be putting it on my "will buy on DVD" list. In fact, if I was offered to go with a friend I'd probably go see it again at the movies. You know those movies where you walk away thinking "What happens next?" this was not one of those for me, I KNOW what happens next, I believe Christopher will keep his promise. Maybe not in the time frame given as their planet is said to be much larger than ours so I'm guessing it's either further away from their sun or their sun is bigger so maybe their years are longer but either way he'll keep that promise.
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