Film Review: District-9 (2009)

Review by: Rick Romanowski

Release Date: August 14,2009

Director: Neil Blomkamp

Writers: Neil Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

To be honest, I was very skeptical about this movie when I first saw the preview for it. I didn’t know what to think about it, well, after much wait and a fire drill in our theater, I finally saw District 9. To me it was deceiving, but the movie was very well crafted, great acting, amazing effects and it’s very, very, very sad… but still very good. It was a movie that turns the alien sci-fi genre on its side, in a way, since the aliens in this movie are the good guys. It sends a message to everybody that is painfully obvious but if you look past the political statement then it’s brilliant.



The film starts out as though it was a documentary about how these aliens came to our planet because their ship fused out. It gives the impression that these aliens are hostile and that everybody wants them out of Johannesburg so they deploy a special team to make sure they evacuate the area to a concentration camp looking area. The movie then flip flops and rather then telling the story from a documentary style, it turns into an actual movie and you finally see that we are the enemy and the aliens are just confused, scared and only want to go home. It turns the alien genre on it’s back and shows how we persecute these creatures and how we are harassing them and calling them derogatory names. The movie is pro-alien and anti-human.

The effects were outstanding and they really made the aliens look real and for a while I actually believed they were… even the spaceship looked real behind the sun and in the clouds. It had a great sound and great editing.

At points, the film is very sad since the central alien that the story follows is a family man; who has one son but no wife and he cares for him and cares for his people… all he wants is the best for him, but complications arise and he becomes separated from him. It’s very sad. In some way it reminds me of Blood Diamond since D-9 shows how much this alien cares. Even the main human character, which slowly turns into one of the aliens, has love for his wife and has good intentions, but he becomes ostracized due to his half man, half alien status.

I strongly recommend anyone who is a fan of the genre to check out District 9 because it is a very relevant movie that delivers some great action sequences, sad plot points and some very great effects. I had a blast watching this movie and I know I’ll end up buying it when it comes to DVD.