District 9

District 9 (2009)

89% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 186 reviews)

Runtime: 112 minutes

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp

Starring: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, William Allen Young, Robert Hobbs

From: TriStar Pictures/Wingnut Films

I know, I’ve been lax in putting up new stuff here but the past few days have been busy with a variety of activities, so thus it is just now that I’ve been able to do this. Last Friday I went to downtown Orlando and not only did I watch this, but I went to a local club that happens to be like a 2 minute walk away from the theatre. It was quite the night there. I was at the club for a 1 dollar beer and then I left to go watch the movie at the Plaza Cinema Café, which is better than what it was when it opened in late May, but still needs some work. While I was there I had some sort of frozen alcoholic fruity drink known as an Orange Creamsicle. It was good. However, that didn’t affect what I thought of the movie. I did write about it once I got home from a night where it ended on drama but the next night I realized what the drama was about so I wasn’t mad about it anymore. I won’t talk about that, but I will post what I said about the movie on MySpace a few days ago, where I wrote it while drinking a mixed drink at home, so I don’t think that really affected it, but I figured I’d better mention it anyway, just in case.

“It’s a shame (I didn’t like this more), as the movie looks to cost a lot more than its small budget would indicate, the acting was fine-enough all around, the aliens looked nice, the director of this has great potential, and shit blows up nicely in the action scenes. The story, though… sorry to say, but I thought that the story was absolute horseshit, with a horrible ending. I can’t really delve into my issues with the story here without giving out major spoilers, but one thing I can admit here is that believe it or not, the aliens and humans are somehow able to communicate with each other with no effort, as if they both speak the same language, even though that’s far from the case. The aliens speak gibberish that’s akin to Klingon or the language that Chewbacca speaks! No shit. I can’t suddenly understand why Klingons or Wookiees speak without subtitles but for whatever reason, the humans and aliens can speak to each other with no problems. The aliens even know curse words like “fuck”! That’s far from the only complaint I have, though. The entire reason why the aliens are there and can’t leave and are a part of the city that they’re stuck in (Johannesburg, South Africa; the story relates to apartheid in the past and yes I realize that; they doesn’t do anything to change my opinion on the film) is illogical and dumb. Many questions were arisen as I watched the film and not really any of them were answered. Stuff happened that shouldn’t have only because “it’s a movie” and certain characters were needed for later or whatnot. The ending… it’s not a happy one and it makes all the main characters look like shit and total chumps… one of them goes directly against what he said motivated him to continue on rather than give up and just die. Yeah, this movie royally pissed me off and judging by the response I got already when I logically bitched about it on an internet forum, I guess I’ll be labeled a “troll” for my opinions on this even though I’m not being honest and not trolling, and I’ll probably not understand why most everyone is slobbering over this movie.”

Yeah, I curse more often while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or 10.

A few days later and after the virulent reaction I got online for saying that I didn’t care for the movie, I still stand by what I said. I mean, to give away a SPOILER here, the reason why the alien ship is in South Africa and is stuck in limbo is because some sort of part fell off it and it vanished, without anyone finding it or whatever. If you think that’s dumb, note that the aliens have amazing firepower, which is an important part of the plot, and yet they don’t use it to prevent being abused by us humans because… well, just because, as far as I could tell. I mean, I could see no explanation for why that happened and yet it did. It’s this kind of stuff that bothered me and I guess I’ll never figure out why everyone else is able to look past such major plot holes like that and fall in love with this. Oh well, though. Like I said, I liked the acting all in all (especially from Copley; this was pretty much his debut and he was in most of this film) and the director could be a big name in the future.