District 9

Since my family was in town this weekend, we went to go see a few movies. One chick flick and one action movie. Yesterday we went to go see District 9. My dad and I are both really into SciFi and we both like movies. I had been asking my boyfriend if we could go see this movie for about a month and I kept asking him when he was going to take me to the movies and I kept getting “I don’t know,” so I decided…I should go with my family. My dad really wants to see it and so do I, and if I end up waiting for my boyfriend to take me to go see it…I may never go! And I am SO glad that I went to see it! It was great! One of the best movies I have seen in a long time. I guess if you are not into SciFi or the Alien thing or anything like that….then you may not like this movie.

District 9 is actually done in a documentary style (which gives me hope for World War Z which is THE BEST ZOMBIE BOOK that they are turning into a movie because that is also a documentary!). The story opens in Johannesburg, South Africa. And alien ship comes to earth about 20 years ago in a “mother ship,” and it sits and hovers above Johannesburg for months without making contact. So eventually the governments get sick of this and they decided to initiate contact and they cut into the ship and discover a massive number of sick and malnourished aliens living in the ship. It seems that the leaders either died or left them, so humans take it upon themselves to bring the aliens to earth, and put them into refugee camps. The refugee camp becomes known as District 9 is is gated off and it turns into a ghetto because of the over population. The humans (because we are such a great and caring species) eventually turn to hating the aliens and we (the humans) start to refer to the aliens as “Prawns” in a derogatory way, because of they way the seem to be bottom feeders and live off the government.

A huge black market opens up inside District 9, because as like in every ghetto, there are guns, violence and Drugs. The Drug of choice for the Aliens is actually cat food. A group of Nigerians lead by a slightly crazy man named Mumbo run this black market making money by exchanging cat food for alien weapons. The only down side is that the weapons have been made to only integrate with the aliens. Mumbo and his gang use all types of rituals to attempt to find a way to use the alien weapons including eating the aliens.

Because of all the problems with District 9 the population of Johannesburg and the rest of the world turn against the “Prawns” they start to hate them, much like the KKK do towards African Americans, or the Germans to the Jews. (Sick Really). The government decided it is time to relocate the aliens.

A company, known as MNU (Mulit-National United) take it upon themselves to relocate the 1.5 (or so) million aliens to a new refugee camp known as District 10 which was located outside of Johannesburg. MNU also has another agenda at hand, they are actually in fact one of the largest weapons manufacturing company in the world and they would love to get their hands on the knowledge of who to USE the alien technology/weapons. They have to go into District 9 and tell all the alien residence that they are getting evicted.

MNU selects a man named Wikus van der Merwe (an unknown actor named Sharlto Copley). He sets out to inspect all the alien residence and tell them they are to be evicted. While he is in District 9 he comes across an alien container that shots some odd liquid into his face making him EXTREAMLY sick and starts a strange, rapid transformation which turns Wikus’s arm into a mutated alien claw. Because his DNA has found a way to bound with the aliens MNU finds this extremely interesting and kidnap him for experimental testing and they force him to operate the alien weapons. They decide that they need to actually dissect him so they can find out WHY he bonded with the aliens DNA. Wilkus of course doesn’t, obviously, wan to be cut into and he escapes MNU and flees to the only place he can hid…District 9. A huge man hunt starts in search of Wilkus while he searchers for a why to get rid of his alien DNA, become human again and return to his wife and happy home.

Of course this is only about the first 1/4th of the movie. The plot thickens and it really keeps you on the edge of your seat. I am not going to tell you anymore, because I think that this is a great movie and everyone should go to see it!!!

I think one of the things I really loved about this movie was that it was JUST as good if not better then hundreds of Hollywood movies that they make for 100million + dollars yet this was made with a budge of 30 million and they used unknown actors (who all did a fabulous job!!) and they shot it on location in Johannesburg, South Africa. I think they did a great job with this movie. I am curious what they are going to do, because although it ended….they also left it open in a way…so I would like to see what they do. And if they do make a sequel, I do not want them to go all big Hollywood bang…I would want the same thing…again!

This movie I would rate 8 ½ out of 10 stars. And it is one of the TOP movies of the summer….maybe the best I have seen all summer. I wish I could have seen it with my boyfriend, and if he would like to take me again to see it, I would for sure be down with that. BUT I am glad I didn’t wait around for him to decided he wanted to take me to a movie…because if that had been the case, I am fairly sure that I would not have gotten to go see this really amazing movie that is TOTALLY worth seeing.

Of the two movies I saw this weekend District 9 was the BEST!!!