District 9: No Fun Being a Detained Alien

The Plot: The discovery of alien life would certainly be an interesting day on Earth, figuring out where we stand in the grand scheme of things. But, assuming the newcomers weren’t our new alien overlords, what would happen then? According to “District 9,” the aliens could be one more pain in the butt for societies already dealing with a lack of resources.

In the film, a huge ship comes to a hover about a mile above Johannesburg, South Africa in the 1980s, and just hangs there. When we go up to investigate, we find a malnourished group of more than one million insectoid aliens, looking for help. Twenty years later, the aliens have been put up in slums, and the situation is tense on both sides. When the decision is made to evict and relocate the aliens to another camp, the project’s manager, Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), runs afoul of an alien experiment and has to make some hard decisions.

The Verdict: “District 9” is a very rare animal — an intelligent, well-told summer science-fiction film. The effects are there (the aliens are all VERY well done seamless CGI), but the story is solid, and hangs together on Copley’s performance; audiences will be embarrassed, disgusted and encouraged by his character’s actions during the course of the film. It’s an amazing piece of work.

Interesting Tidbits:
• The film was made for $30 million, which is a lot of money to most of us, but by Hollywood standards, this was a shoestring budget for a sci-fi flick. “Julie & Julia,” for instance, had a budget of $40 million.
• The film made $37 million in its opening weekend. Not a bad ROI.
• This is the first real acting role for the film’s main human, Sharlto Copley, who’s worked mostly behind the scenes in other films.