*Spoiler Warning*
I heard that District 9 was a good movie. I heard it was a thoughtful film that explored contemporary issues through the lens of Speculative Fiction. I heard that it was the best film of the summer. I was fucking lied to. District 9 is a terrible movie that deserves nothing but jeers and hate. Fortunately, these are items I possess in great supply
The byword for this film is pastiche. Everything it does, everything it is is essentially a sloppier version of other films. The result is a bland, tasteless product: lukewarm in intensity and lacking in flavor. I could go on with this metaphor but the conclusion is simple; the film tastes like day-old garbage.
The film’s first stab at unoriginality comes in its opening moments, as a series of documentary-style news footage takes a massive infodump on us. We learn that the aliens are stranded on Earth and are basically too dumb to live, along with a bunch of other initially irrelevant backstory that will become important later. The framing conceit of the documentary will stay with us throughout the film, though like the American Office, it will be slipped on and off at the convenience of the director.
It is fitting, then, that the protagonist is a pastiche of the boss character in the Office, an inept bureaucrat whose mugging and joking for the cameras hides a deep pettiness and ignorance that borders on cruelty. We follow Wikus in a kind dystopic, alien version of Reno 911! for the next several scenes as Wikus serves the aliens in District 9 their eviction notices. While a seemingly interesting premise, the execution falls flat, neither funny nor particularly gripping. I liked it better when Ricky Gervais did it.
Next up on the hit list is Cronenbergian Body Horror, as depicted most famously in the 1986 classic, The Fly. District 9’s take is pretty much a paint-by-numbers affair. First he starts to bleed weird, then his fingernails come off, then, oh shit, he’s a monster. I liked it better when Goldblum did it.
Wikus is captured, blah, blah, blah, then escapes to District 9. While a bit more obscure than the film’s other bland rip-offs. Wikus’s escape had a lot in common with the Korean monster movie, The Host, in which that film’s protagonist must escape from evil government doctors by holding someone hostage with a scalpel, then must negotiate a city full of people who have been told he has an infectious disease. I liked it better when Song Kang-ho did it.
Back in District 9, we get the classic, “guy in privileged position sees what life is like for people on the other side.” Wikus has to sleep in a shack with cardboard blankets and eat cat food. Now the cruel oppressor is indistinguishable from the oppressed. How innovative! We’ve all seen this done a million times, from Black Like Me to Tootsie to the Prince and the Pauper. Yawn. I liked it better when Dan Akroyd did it.
So Wikus and this alien dude come up with a plan to do some stuff, so the film turns pretty much into a generic action film from this point on. Heads explode, explosions go off, guns shoot at stuff. Basically, shit just gets real. The ending is sappy and completely unearned. Wikus and the alien become best buddies for no fucking reason other than for them to look tearfully at each other and exchange cliched goodbyes (I’ll come back for you!). I liked it better when [every action movie except Hancock] did it.
The movie also was plagued by giant plotholes. Example: One of the characters ends the film awaiting trial for revealing the Big Bad Corporation’s illegal genetics program. The film explicitly says it is illegal. It’s apparently against the law in this world to reveal when your employer is breaking the law. Also, the aliens are too stupid to live. If they really want catfood so bad, why not use one of the million fucking laser beams they have to just take it from the cannibal Nigerians?
This is a bad movie. The premise is novel, but the execution is startlingly unoriginal. I guess people like it because it touches on “serious issues,” even though its touch is the lightest possible, a gentle poke at apartheid followed by repeated slaps to the face of the moviegoing public. It currently has 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I believe this world of ours has gone mad.
Fuck District 9.
