This is topic District 9 (2009) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 08-14-2009, 03:26 PM:
 
CINEMA: 13th Avenue Warren, Wichita, KS
AUDITORIUM: 14
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital DLP/THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

Let's review the runtimes of most of the big features, shall we? District 9: 120 min. Julie and Julia: 135 min. G.I. Joe: 130 min. My point being...Over half the movies playing here this weekend are two hours or longer in length. THIS IS STUPID.

THE PLOT: A space ship breaks down and the occupants don't have AAA. Wackiness ensues.

The movie is largely shot documentary-style with lots of shaky cameras and television-quality images with faux news graphics. We already know how you feel about this. The idle ship has hovered over Johannesburg, South Africa for twenty years. The aliens, starting out at a population of about a million, have grown to about 1.8 million. They live in a shanty town known as "District 9" and are classified the same as pretty much any community of poor people who fight and steal to survive are. The government is planning to relocate them.

I suppose the idea was political satire (and it's VERY political)...except it's not funny. In fact, it makes you angry. A lot.

Decently done for what it is, but leaves a lot of questions open at the end. The question I keep asking myself is how I managed to sit through the whole thing.
 

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Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 08-14-2009, 11:37 PM:
 
I enjoyed it enough to be glad that I saw it, but not enough to want to see it again.

It felt somewhat original - or at least not as formulaic as most hollywood offerings these days.

The documentary style worked for me in this one.

The first half was a lot more tongue-in-cheek humorous than I expected.

I was disappointed that the "prawns" competency (or lack of) was never explained. They have all this technology, but they behave like idiots. When the mystery liquid macguffin showed up, I thought it was going to be like "royal jelly" is to bees - something that would create a "hive leader" that would bring them in order... but I guess it was just fuel...
 

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Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 08-15-2009, 09:51 AM:
 

quote: Geoff Jones

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They have all this technology, but they behave like idiots.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes it's difficult to see metaphors that are aimed at our own society.
 

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Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 08-15-2009, 11:31 AM:
 
Yeah, but with humans & technology, it's usually an issue of misuse. For the prawns it was all DIS-use. But point taken.


 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-15-2009, 08:53 PM:
 
I would say this movie is better than "District 8," but not nearly as good as "District 4" or "5." And of course neither of those are as good as the original "District."
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 08-16-2009, 07:02 PM:
 
Saw it today at Regal 15 in Eugene, #9, 35mm. Looked and sounded excellent.

The movie kind of worked for me. It's fairly original for one thing, interesting narrative to the story, very nice effects. But it has some problems. The lead human character's personality seemed to change mid-story, almost as if the writers rewrote his character in the middle of shooting. I mean he's a heartless (and inept) a-hole, then something happens to him, and he changes his attitude bigtime, but for what reasons except saving himself. Or was he really sympathetic to Christopher Johnson & his fellow prawns' plight. I just didn't buy his behavior.

I missed the first couple minutes. Did they offer a clear explanation for the presence of the alien ship and why it was stuck hovering over the city and for 20 years nobody could do anything about it?

Anyway I kind of liked it and I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
 

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Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 08-16-2009, 11:48 PM:
 

quote: David Stambaugh

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The lead human character's personality seemed to change mid-story, almost as if the writers rewrote his character in the middle of shooting.

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Spoiler Alert - Click to Toggle

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was taken into (and, hence, found out about) the "experimentation" room & was being experimented on himself, and was forced to kill a prawn. AND to top it off they were going to kill him just for knowledge of the joining of the two species - pretty much just to be able to use the weapons

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