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Aug 09Would “District 6/9″ be too obvious?
I saw (500) Days of Summer a couple weeks ago, but Caroline wrote something first (and better than I would have). So I’m going to just focus on District 9. This actually works out pretty well, because I am the kind of guy who reads a lot of news and social commentary, is mildly obsessed with military esoterica, and generally prefers “flying shrapnel” explosions to the “emotional breakdown” variety.
In case you haven’t heard, District 9‘s premise is pretty intriguing. A huge alien mothership enters the atmosphere and hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. After three months of waiting for the ship to do something besides shade parts of the city, engineers cut a hole in the ship and find… aliens! They’re neither benevolent nor malevolent, however–they’re pretty docile and oddly primitive (except for their weaponry, which they never seem to use and cannot be fired by humans). The South African government ultimately sets up a camp for the aliens, mockingly called “prawns,” which rapidly devolves into a slum guarded by private defense contractor Multi-National United (Sure, it’s a stupid name, but real-world mercenary companies have pretty dumb names too: Custer Battles, Sharp End International, and Xe Services, formerly Blackwater).
Fast-forward twenty years, and racial xenophobic tension is starting to boil over. MNU is put in charge of relocating the million aliens from the D9 shantytown to a new camp far outside the city, and point man for this gigantic undertaking is…a middle manager. Inexplicably, Wikus van der Merwe, a good-natured, spineless bureaucrat, is the tip of the spear.
You’re at the edge of the map. Here, there be spoilers.
Wikus’ crew rolls into D9, threatening, bribing and conniving the prawns into signing away their shacks. Wikus himself is largely unconcerned with the abuse heaped on the creatures–he acts like a kid watching cartoons when MNU forces torch a nursery shack, gleefully chanting “Popcorn! It sounds like popcorn!” as the eggs inside burst. While exploring another shack, he accidentally gives himself a faceful of alien goo, at which point his DNA begins to mutate into that of the prawns. He then gets kidnapped (or rendered extraordinarily, if you prefer), is experimented on by MNU scientists (Surprise! The global defense company wants to be able to use advanced alien weapons!), forms an unlikely alliance with a single alien father named “Charles Johnson,” blah blah blah. The running and shooting starts about now.
Unfortunately, director Neill Blomkamp pulls his punches. After beating the viewer over the head early with the District 6 allegory, the film becomes a straightforward sci-fi action extravaganza. I know that the market for racial commentary is largely nonexistent (see also: The Wire), but the latter two-thirds of the movie don’t deliver on its premise. That said, it’s still a very good, mostly-intelligent movie in a genre that’s been missing a lot brainpower lately. And, in the finest sci-fi tradition, there’s always the off-chance of a sequel.
Of course, I wouldn’t be a dork if I didn’t have inane nits to pick, so here we go:
- Where do all these weapons come from? The starving aliens were ferried down from their mothership by helicopter. Did they hide the guns and three-meter mechanized walker in their luggage? Under a tarp, maybe?
- Early in the movie, there’s an anti-aircraft missile turret prominently placed…inside the slum. There is literally no good reason for it to be there, except as a plot device. The bad guys also seem to forget what it does after it’s used once.
- Is there any reason the parasitic human gangsters have to be Nigerian? South Africa has some problems too, you know.
- Mr. Charles Johnson’s blood probably should be black, like all the rest of the prawns. Instead, he bleeds just like a red-blooded American Afrikaaner.
- Screenwriters: please make a formal pact to never again write the sentence “Go, before I change my mind!” in anything. Maybe you could work it into the next round of contract talks or something. We’d all appreciate it.
- Wait. Wikus’ protegé was arrested for exposing MNU’s secret, illegal programs? South African law must be a bit different than the American version.
Tagged: civil liberty, movies, pop
August 17th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
hur hur district 69 hur hur