District 9

Imagine waking up one to find a massive extra terrestrial spaceship hovering above your city. Kinda freaky right? Well that is the tone set up in District 9. The opening of the movie begins with a series of documentary-like interviews to establish the premise of the movie; alien ship over Johannesburg - South Africa, aliens (aka Prawns) appear to be malnourished, and they are relocated to a government camp on Earth called District 9. Ok that's the beginning. As the movie progresses we begin to see that the Prawns are wearing out there welcome in Johannesburg, as they have been on Earth for 20 years, and are being ushered outside of the city to District 10 by the MNU, Multi-National United. This company, aside from being charged with the relocation, has a hidden agenda and that is to learn how to use the advanced weaponry brought to Earth by these aliens.

The MNU is being led by Wikus Van Der Merwe and during the relocation process he is also charged with inspecting suspicious activity and behavior. During one of his inspections he finds an out of sorts container which sprays him in the face with a dark nasty liquid. After a bit he begins to experience, shall we say, a transformation and its for the worse...he is slowly becoming one of them. This unlocks a world of possibility into the use of all the collected alien weaponry that MNU has been dying to understand. Wikus becomes a valuable and targeted individual and is forced to join the ranks of the Prawns not just for their survival but his own.

This was a rather interesting film that was shot very well and had an extremely unique plot, one that I had never seen before. Since Peter Jackson had his hands in the production you know that the effects will be top notch. After all that something was still missing for me and I can't quite put my finger on it. The story was complete, the acting was pretty good, the special effects were right on, and I really enjoyed how they did the quasi-documentary but something still lacked. And because I didnt quite feel that this movie was completely well-rounded I give Disctrict 9 a B.