District 9

This is a movie I saw once before, back when it first came out almost 7 years ago... yes, 7. I don't believe it either. I imagine some won't believe that I didn't like the movie then and I still don't like it now, but 'tis true. I reviewed it back in the early days of my blog, so I'll just copy and paste below what I said about seeing it again on Letterboxd:

I haven't seen this movie since watching it on the big screen late August of 2009 before I gave it a second viewing last night, but back then I was a rare person who didn't like it and boy did some people on a messageboard not like hearing such an opinion. They just acted like asshats, but it's all good, as they (I have no memory of what their handles even were) were just giant man-babies and their rude actions meant nothing to me. It certainly did not change my opinion. During Amazon Prime Day earlier this month, the Blu-ray set of all three Neill Blomkamp movies went on sale for only 10 dollars and change; I decided to do that as it was hardly more than renting all three of those films from Amazon and streaming them.

Watching this again last night... sorry folks, but I still don't like it. Honestly, even rating this as 2 stars is being awfully generous on my part. I don't need to recap the plot as I am sure most know it already. The fact that this is actually an allegory about Apartheid, I figured it out rather quickly. It doesn't mean that I find the movie to be logical when it's done via an alien ship being stuck over South Africa and weird-looking bipedal creatures are supposed to represent black people. A second viewing made me realize all the glaring plot holes this has. I won't list all of them as I don't want to give out massive spoilers here... but the big one to me: how exactly did those creatures with those massively popular weapons end up living in a hellhole slum? Why didn't they destroy humanity? It makes no sense!

It's even worse than how those aliens and humans are able to understand each others languages, why the aliens have human names (back in '09, people gave me crap for having the gall to note how stupid it was for the lead alien to be known as Christopher Johnson), or various dumb moments resulting from this being a ham-fisted allegory. I've talked before about my biggest issue with modern filmmaking is how too many big movies are completely illogical, and this includes people that most people (including on Letterboxd) love but left me cold. Gone Girl is one huge example of that. An ugly mean-spirited tone is another big problem I have (Gone Girl also fits in that category); sadly, I think the movie has both of those things in spades.

Really, what makes this even watchable for me is how good the movie looks and how the special effects worked then (and still work now) when the movie only cost 30 million dollars to make... at least that's what “they” have always claimed. It's a whole rant I won't get into when it comes to why movies are so expensive these days; it shouldn't be that way, and I'll leave it at that. I noted at the time and it's been proven by big movies and those smaller ones that skip a wide theatrical release or are only made for discs/streaming, it is cost-effective and you get a lot of bang for your buck.

I wish I could love this like most do; it did not cost a fortune to make and the core idea is original... at least when they don't rip off superior movies like Alien Nation or Cronenberg's version of The Fly, which are movies I'd rather watch again than possibly see this a third time. This picture just doesn't work for me. It doesn't make me thrilled to see Elysium or Chappie sometime in the future, as unlike with this, both those flicks are incredibly polarizing.