Rate District 9

[dravot]

Heard it as Vickers and Dickers, man was I off!

The South African accent was a bit hard to track, especially when it's an unfamiliar name. I noticed that Wikus' name was pronounced slightly differently by different characters, too.

I loved the film - anything that gives me food for thought is a good thing.

 

[coriolis]

I loved the film - anything that gives me cat food for thought is a good thing.

I corrected that for you

More seriously, I liked the film quite a lot overall.

The good:
- The "subhuman" treatment given to the aliens unfortunately rang very true.
- The callous insensitivity of Van Der Merwe at the beginning of the story. (Combined with the documentary style, reminded me a lot of The Office).
- A fight between a mecha and a bunch of criminals and mercenaries that was highly creative and moving (and CLEAR, unlike the blurry jump cuts that seem to be the prevalent Hollywood style nowadays).
- A funny inside joke about the origin of the movie ("She almost looks like she has a HALO...")

Annoyances:
- MNU as a stock evil corporation, with a VP that is quite happy to turn his son-in-law into a guinea pig to be dissected.
- Subtitling the black characters' speech, but not the white characters, even though the latter were at times more difficult to understand (I realize this is a purely subjective annoyance, but I imagine I'm not alone in this, so I would have preferred either subtitling the whole film, or just the alien's speech).
- An obvious lead-in to a sequel (it seems to go against the whole 'not your typical sci-fi/action movie' vibe).

Unanswered questions:
- Why the aliens have fled their home, and if Earth and Johannesburg were deliberate or accidental destinations.
- Why did the aliens transport so much military hardware? (possibly related to item above)

 

[RangerWickett]

My theory is that the ship was traveling some place, got damaged, and was set on a slow course for the nearest habitable planet. Along the way supplies ran low and the worker caste turned on its leaders. A handful like Christopher hid and survived, and when the ship coasted to a stop they jettisoned the command module and hid it, because they planned to search for supplies to repair the navigation system.

 

[Truth Seeker]

I like it alot...the humor, the seriousness...and the sacrifice. All had meaning.

 

[Mark]

I ilked it a 7 but would have 8ed it if not for too much shaky cam. Good buddy flick.

 

[catsclaw227]

Hard to believe it was made for only $30mil, considering what it costs for most sci-fi based action style movies these days.

And the marketing wasn't even very overdone. It was a simple site and some viral marketing mostly in the beginning.

This movie is gonna give NB and PJ even more opportunities to work together.

 

[Wolf72]

I'd recommend this to anyone ... Fun movie to watch. A sequel would be highly anticipated.

 

[Phaezen]

Unanswered questions:
- Why the aliens have fled their home, and if Earth and Johannesburg were deliberate or accidental destinations.
- Why did the aliens transport so much military hardware? (possibly related to item above)

And I think this is possibly why the film is so good. Niell and Peter are prepared to assume the audience are intelligent and don't need to be spoonfed all the information.

I am almost willing to bet that if this had been a larger budget, major studio driven film there would have been a nerdy and/or cute scientist with all the answers, which would have left the film feeling somewhat like generic modern science fiction.

There is also some clever character development throughout the film for both Wikus and Chris which I really enjoyed.

 

[Mark]

There is also some clever character development throughout the film for both Wikus and Chris which I really enjoyed.

All of that was what made this a really good film, IMO. The blood and gore was kinda cheezy, good cheezy, but cheezy. The story and its focus on characters made this a good film.

 

[Crothian]

I found it to be just average. It seemed long. It had nice special effects but these days most movies do so that no longer impresses me.