The Case for Alien Neighbours

Aliens arrive on Earth in a giant spaceship, but it quickly becomes apparent that there is no invasion or revelation from above: these aliens are lost, with no chance of going home, and the wondrous technology that brought them here is unfathomable. So, how will these visitors from another world live side by side with human society? What a great idea for a movie.

And it was, in the movie Alien Nation and TV series based on it. But now is the noughties, so, thanks to fancy computers, the aliens can actually look completely inhuman rather than just having funny heads, and where things foreign tend to be locked away rather than integrated.

And so District 9 brings some amazing looking special effects to play to a fairly grim story. The aliens have been locked away in a ghetto outside Johannesburg and the humans have decided a corporation can better manage these aliens’ affairs – which basically means moving them into a ghetto less in the unwelcoming human public eye.

The fact this is a South African film is a real boon – the fact the aliens are in a slum is not so surprising considering the slums already there, and the racist attitudes towards the aliens build on the (perceived) tensions between the various human groups already there. Amongst the mainly South African cast, I am sure I heard and saw a few New Zealanders in there, and its an amazingly well put together film.

Of course, I find fault with almost everything, and the fault with this movie is the story. I won’t go into too much depth as I can’t do that without revealing what happens, but suffice to say that one of the main contentions of the trailer is completely ignored in the movie and there are a few “we knew that all along” moments that just had me scratching my head.

But only for a wee while – once the documentary style presentation is (more or less) done away with (finishing half way through on a very “thank goodness it is going” note) for lots of splatter gore and of course (being a Peter Jackson produced film) at least one animal must be involved in an amusing death along the way.

The morality of the tale is not really the focus of this film – sure there are lessons learned and heart-strings pulled, but mostly the film is a change for peoples’ heads to explode. The love story between the lead character and his wife is completely unengaging and I was left completely uninterested in what the wife was on about, but then that is more a fault of the documentary style than any issue with the actors.

So, to wrap this one up, I found District 9 a highly flawed film. There are so many things against it when I think about it, I just don’t bother to think about them too much. Because, in the end, I enjoyed the film, revelled in the special effects, appreciated the fact I was watching a very accomplished South African film, and learned to just ignore the gaping holes in the plot we jumped over on the way.

Verdict: Lots of fun, but no Schindler’s List tale on man’s inhumanity to inhumans. 6 cans of cat food out of 10.


By the way – does anyone else hate the new Telecom mobile phone advertisements with Richard Hammond as much as I do? I like the Hamster in general, but he comes across as such a smug prick and the idea is such a complete turnoff I would not even consider switching to that network as a matter of principle. But then, I am like that.