by muffinstud » Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:23 pm
It's good. Let me give a bit of analysis.
Any science fiction film or book has one giant hurdle to overcome. No matter how good the story, how endearing or intricate the characters, this one hurdle is common to every single piece of science fiction ever made. You see, every sci-fi story has some element that to our current society is completely impossible. Be it the marauding martians from War of the Worlds to the "Little Cricket" gun from Men in Black, there is always something impossible in these stories. The hurdle is making the audience believe it's possible.
District 9 clears this hurdle by a mile. You see, it's filmed like a documentary. It uses stock footage from real riots that happened in Johannesburg a few years ago. Every interview shot, every action scene is filmed by professional cameramen on scene. This style lends the viewer to not only think that this could happen, but that it may already have. You just happened to miss those particular news casts. At times the action is frenetic and choppy, but you know it's like that because the cameraman is on shaky ground. Couple this device with the moral and humanitarian conundrums the film deals with, and you soon find that you yourself are mulling those very issues over in your mind. Because you weren't watching a film, you were at the scene of a wondrous event that changed your perspective on human rights.
That is, at least, if you were paying attention to anything that wasn't getting blown up. People say there's humor in this movie. I only laughed at the ridiculously awesome butt-whooping in the final act. Maybe you'll see something I missed though.
"Well, you'll have plenty of time to live in a van down by the river, when you're living...in a van down by the river!" --Matt Foley, motivational speaker