Ok, before you read anything PLEASE READ THIS PART: I enjoyed “District 9” very much. I even went to see it in theaters twice. It’s a very solid movie that was fun, had some of the best visual effects I’ve seen in a long time and flowed very well.
But since all of us (at least the majority of us) seem to agree on those points, what’s the point of regurgitating it at length? Can’t really have a discussion on something you all agree about. So instead, I want to take a few minutes and talk about the things in district 9 that I didn’t care for and get your thoughts on them. WARNING… IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET, THIS POST WILL CONTAIN A COUPLE OF SPOILERS… SO READ WITH CAUTION. So here we go:
1) On the first screening, and especially on the second screening, I felt more and more (during a good chunk of the film in the middle) like I was watching a “re-imagining” of “The Fly”. Yes yes I get it… his body is changing. Yes yes I get it, his finger nails are falling off. Yes yes I get it, his teeth are falling out. I swear I half expected to see Jeff Goldblum to jump out from behind a wall and say “Buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet”.
2) The movie tells us that 1.8 MILLION “prawns” live in district 9. That’s a lot of shacks. And yet… when first going on the run from MNU, Wikus runs into District 9… and as MNU forces start closing in on him, he JUST HAPPENS to duck into the shack of the brain prawn who created the fluid that was changing him and could be the one to save him. 1.8 million prawns… figure that to be maybe 800,000 shacks. A 1 in 800,000 fortunate coincidence. It was a bit of a stretch.
3) The movie tells us it took “Christopher” (the brain prawn) 20 years to collect enough fluid to make his ship go. 20 years. That’s roughly 7300 days. And the exact day that he finally collects enough fluid also happens to be the exact day that MNU shows up to evict them all out of district 9. Another coincidence with a 1 in 7300 chance. Again… a bit of a stretch.
4) So let me get this straight. This fluid that Christopher put together and then reformulated was SPECIFICALLY designed to be the key fuel he needed to make his shuttle craft start up and take off to fly him up to the mother ship. So essentially it’s gasoline… a very advanced, complicated, specifically designed gasoline to make his ship “go”. Ok. But wait a second… this gasoline that is so complex, so specific, so engineered for it’s specific purpose… if sprayed into the face of a human being will perfectly and healthily turn a normal man into a creature of another species?!?! Really?!?!?!? Will it take scratches out of my car’s paint and make my laundry whites brighter too? Cure male erectile dysfunction and turn the Cincinnati Bengals into a winning football team? “Fluid” is the new “snake oil” that does everything product! If only Billy Mays was around to pitch this thing.
5) My biggest peeve of this other wise very solid movie was the one dimensional “bad guys”. The movie does such a FANTASTIC job of making its hero, Wikus, so multi layered… a GOOD man who despite his good nature is vile and horrible to the prawn. He’s a racist, yet the hero. But then they make the bad guys basically Snidely Whiplash twirling their black mustaches while laughing “Muwahhhh ha ha ha ha… I’m soooooo EVVIILLLLL”. I really hate it when movies do that. They might as well have put Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars in as the bad guy. He would have has just as much moral complexity as these guys did.
So there you have it. Like I said, District 9 is a very good movie and one I recommend people see. but these are just some of the things I didn’t dig about it… doesn’t mean I’m “slamming” the movie (remember… the first “Transformers” movie was one of my favorite summer movies of all time… but I spent a good portion of my DVD commentary talking about what I saw as its weaknesses).
So what are your thoughts? Disagree with some of my points? Agree with them? Did you see other weaknesses that I didn’t?
