District 9

Twenty years ago, an alien space ship appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. After three months with no activity, helicopters were sent up to investigate.  Inside were over a million aliens that were dubbed 'Prawns'. Their ship was damaged and they were severely malnourished. Upon reviewing earlier footage it was discovered that what appeared to be a command ship of some sort broke off when the main ship first appeared. All the aliens were ferried down to a relief camp. After awhile the camp became a permanent fenced and patrolled area called District 9. Now after years of violence on both sides, the MNU (Multi-National United) has decided to relocated the aliens to District 10 a long ways away from Johannesburg. Wikus Van Der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) has been placed in charge of the operation.  A camera crew follows Wikus and his second in command Thomas (Kenneth Nkosi) as they deliver eviction notices to the Prawns.

As we travel through the slums/ghetto that is District 9 we see that there is a Nigerian camp inside where there is a black market for Prawn weapons. According to the laws, Prawns aren't supposed to own weapons so they sell them to the Nigerians for cat food, because the aliens are addicted to cat food apparently. Their weapons are DNA encoded (or something) so that humans can't use them. The leader of the Nigerians Obesandjo (Eugene Khumbanyiwa), under the instruction of a voodoo priestess, has decided that he is going to eat parts of the Prawns in order to change his DNA so that he can use the weapons.  So far it hasn't worked out for him so well.

Also there are three aliens spelunking through the trash piles of the slums looking for alien technology. There's "Christopher", his son and his friend. The kid finds one and they head back to the friend's shack where they dilute the liquid in the device and collect it in a cylindrical tube. Right about then Wikus shows up. "Christopher" and his kid make it out but the third guy ends up taking the wrap for the device. Wikus gets sprayed with the liquid in it and then slowly starts to turn into a Prawn.

Wikus gets exiled form human society and ends up hiding in District 9 where he meets up with "Christopher". He discovers that "Christopher" has the command ship hidden under his shack and was trying to get it fixed up, but he needed the tube. Wikus makes a deal with "Christopher" to help him get the tube back if "Christopher" undoes the weird effects that the gel had on Wikus. Wikus steals weapons from the Nigerians and together the two of them head into the MNU headquarters were "Christopher" discovers that they have been doing experiments on the Prawns. After a lot of fighting between the two (when Wikus learns that "Christopher" wants to leave and get help which will take three years, before helping Wikus) and with the army (who want Wikus dead so that he can't reveal that the MNU has been doing experiments) and with the Nigerians (who want Wikus so that Obesandjo can eat him) "Christopher" and his son finally make it on the mother ship and leave. Now the big question is: will he actually come back, and if he does will it be to get his people home or to exact revenge?

I rather enjoyed this movie. I went in not really knowing what to expect, but not expecting much and was pleasantly surprised. It was actually a well crafted movie that dealt with old issues, like racism and the apartheid in South Africa, in totally new ways. It was well directed and well acted, very well acted actually. It's good to see that there were no big ego-ed actors to ruin this film. I have heard that there was actually no script to this film and I have no idea if that is true of not,  but some of the dialog was a bit repetitive, but other than that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.    

 Grade: 9/10