couple of reviews I found that shed a little light on the movie. not exactly the twist I was expecting if it's true, and both reviewers are pissed at the way black people are portrayed in the film
newsblaze.com
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[align=left]While Hollywood's early venture into science fiction predominantly pandered to public panic related to the Red Scare, the postmodern sci-fi paranoia of choice, if District 9 is any indication, seems to be the color black. In utter disregard of the loathsome racist history of apartheid in their country creating the dismal reality of poverty and pending chaos today, a team of white South African filmmakers has concocted a racially coded alien invasion mockumentary in the guise of entertainment.
Relentlessly clunky and grating in the extreme, District 9 takes its cue from Cloverfield's contrived artsy vertigo to situate the futuristic tall tale combining premeditated pseudo-disorganized camera and surveillance video footage, as supposedly hyper-real journalistic racial profiling panic in the here and now. Sharlto Copley is Wilkus van der Merwe, the public face of private mercenaries contracted by the South African government to evict and relocate to a concentration camp, the surging population of Johannesburg District 9 aliens from outer space. Those refusing to be ordered out of the teeming slum as Merwe cheerfully hands them notices to vacate on camera, are summarily shot dead to the delight of black viewers of the evening news.
But in the course of Merwe's elated pursuit of his fifteen minutes of photo op small screen fame, he contracts an alien virus which to his initial dismay, harvests the host creature and his superpowers within which,
well, turns him into a pregnant man. 
And while Merwe spends the rest of the future as now thriller fleeing mercenaries and hiding out among his new odd couple alien allies in District 9, real South African blacks express relief on camera about alien removal and extinction. The distasteful joke here being perpetrated by director Neill Blomkamp, is that he fooled his subjects into talking about their aversion to the swelling immigrant population from other African countries, particularly Nigeria, and then, so to speak, photo-shopped them into his politically odious victims-as-villains movie. Clever.
At the same time, the Nigerians are depicted as despicable when not depraved bottom feeder hustlers and homicidal gangs financially exploiting the aliens, when not forcing the females into cross-species sex for sale. This, while the white dominated government is simply perplexed.
Rarely have such raucous, hyperactive high alert proceedings in a movie managed to be so relentlessly dull. And while Merwe resists coming to terms with his inner alien but eventually gets turned on to his newfound notoriety wilding with the enemy, but in no way having creature sex with them as the tabloids have been charging, the oppressed metal-screeching monsters become simply oppressive. Pass the earplugs.
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shadowandact.com
And those words are… underwhelming and troubling. One of the most talked and highly anticipated sci-fi films of the year, the South African made District 9 produced by Peter Jackson, and directed by first time filmmaker native South African Neill Blomkamp, is definitely not the revolutionary game changer that the advance word has been buzzing that it is (Though Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds could be, despite the fact it’s an undisciplined, problematic film that’s never less than fascinating to its bizarre twisted end. But that’s another story for another time). Equal parts Cloverfield and War of the Worlds, you know by now that it tells the story of an 20 year alien invasion in Johannesburg and what happens when an alien evacuation bureaucrat (played by Sharlto Copley) gets inflected with some alien goo loaded with their DNA, and starts to become one of them, setting off a race for his life, when he’s coveted by several factions. The film starts off great and makes some clever social and political commentary, but about a third in, it basically becomes nothing more than one long chase movie with fancy alien weapons, and lots of exploding bodies, with some Transformer-like robot thrown in towards the big final battle scene.
But as last week’s Variety review pointed out, the depiction of Black Africans left a lot to be desired. In fact, the review was rather tame in describing the film’s offensive and regressive portrayal of Black people in the film. First of all, despite the film being set in South Africa, practically most of the black people appearing in the film are nothing but background fodder as extras with a few given a line here and there. The only potential major black character in the film, who plays Copley’s assistant, gets a few scenes in the beginning usually with a terrified, scared rabbit look on his face looking like he’s about to run for his life, and is not seen again until briefly at the end. Not exactly heroic.
The other main black characters are of course the evil bad guys, a Nigerian criminal gang lead by a deranged psychopath who, under the spell of some witch doctor, wants Copley so… get this… he can eat him to gain the strength of the aliens. Oh yes, with the witch doctor and maybe one or two brief scenes here and there, black women are virtually nonexistent in the film. Oh wait, there is the one shot of a black prostitute (of course) in which we’re told by voiceover that many prostitutes engage with sex with aliens in exchange for favors. Makes sense since black women aren’t human, so naturally they would have sex with non-humans too. It goes without saying that we don’t see any white prostitutes in the film. But we can’t have that. That would be simply too much.
First the Sambots in Transformers 2, now this. We’re in the 21st century right, but filmmakers still insist in portraying us like we’re from some Tarzan movies or great white hunter in Africa film from the 1940’s. You think they’re trying to tell us a message in these sci-fi films about us? The more things change, the more they stay the same.[/align]
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[align=left]Bottom Line: A genuinely original science fiction film that grabs you immediately, not letting go until the final shot.
Combining the very best of the postwar sci-fi movies with their trenchant political undertones and pulse-pounding dynamism and contemporary movie technology that can blend aliens seamlessly into a realistic human world of urban and moral decay, "District 9" flirts with greatness. This science fiction film from South African-born Canadian Neill Blomkamp, a protege of Peter Jackson, who produced the film, stumbles in a few crucial areas but even so it's a helluva movie. No true fan of science fiction -- or, for that matter, cinema -- can help but thrill to the action, high stakes and suspense built around a very original chase movie.
Having scored a direct hit with audiences last week at Comic-Con, "District 9" is primed for solid business in all markets when it rolls out domestically in August and globally from August through October.
By choosing to film in the city of his youth, Johannesburg, Blomkamp situates his story in a very real place off the beaten path for science fiction. The accents, townships, barbed-wire enclosures and harsh, dusty environment all give "District 9" a gritty sense of place. Why shouldn't an alien spaceship land some place other than the U.S.?
In fact, the film's alien ship arrived over the sky of Jo'burg 20 years before the movie begins. Instead of Spielberg aliens, these are exhausted refugees whose ship literally ran out of gas. The stalled mother ship still hovers over the cityscape, its bedraggled occupants long ago removed from its foul compartments into makeshift camps separated from the human population.
These creatures are deliberately made to appear disgusting: Located somewhere between insects and crustaceans on the evolutionary scale, the aliens have hard shell areas, extremely thin waists, sinewy joints and surprising strength. Humans, in their disgust, call them "prawns" because they are bottom-feeding scavengers who root around for food, especially cat food!
(Make what you will of a humanoid species segregated into refugee camps in South Africa, a place still coping with the after-effects of the apartheid system. The film makes no comment, nor does it need to.)
What the aliens apparently lack is a dark liquid that powers not only their ship but sophisticated weaponry. The humans would love to control those weapons, but activation requires alien DNA. That doesn't prevent a Nigerian underworld boss, Obesandjo (Eugene Khumbanyiwa), from buying up the illegal alien weapons with cat food.
Multinational United (MNU), a private company contracted to control the growing alien population, decides to relocate them from their homes in District 9 to a rural concentration camp. Through nepotism, the task of this mass removal is handed to MNU field operative Wikus (Sharlto Copley), a by-the-book wimp in a vast bureaucracy.
While delivering eviction notices, he discovers and tries to clear an illegal lab run by alien Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope). (You've got to like the idea that condescending Earthlings have given human names to this subjugated species.) In doing so,
Wikus unwittingly gets infected with the alien virus that rapidly changes his DNA. Within hours, he becomes violently ill and grows an alien claw for a hand.
You guessed it. His claw can now operate alien weaponry. Instantly, he is "the most valuable business artifact on Earth." Somehow this means MNU scientists want to harvest his organs. Wilkus escapes, and the chase is on. Hot on his heels is MNU's chief enforcer and the movie's chief villain, Koobus (David James).
The fugitive hides in the only place no one will look: District 9. There he is forced into an uneasy alliance with Christopher and his young son. Seems that virus he came in contact with is the liquid Johnson has been distilling for the past two decades to power the mother ship back home.
The story, written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, comes at you via different media components: Some is raw black-and-white surveillance footage; an MNU corporate video delivers interviews with staffers and other participants, including Wikus; real footage from news agencies provides crowd scenes; finally, cinematographer Trent Opaloch's use of everything from handheld to mini-cameras to shoot much of the action as if it were happening beyond his control, a thing caught on the run.
What the film runs away from though is well-rounded characters. Wikus stands alone as the only fully developed character, a human who has little choice but to become a traitor to his own species. Everyone else leaves a fleeting impression, and the film's villains are too cartoonish. When the decision is made to harvest Wikus' organs -- by his own father-in-law, no less -- there isn't even a hint of a moral dilemma.
Then too the whole point of the chase is vaguely defined. The Nigerian gangster wants to cut off Wikus' arm to eat it! The MNU scientists want to kill Wikus. This makes little sense: Shouldn't Wikus -- the only being who can operate alien weapons -- be of greater value alive than dead? What do the scientists believe they can extract from his organs?
Maybe no one thinks straight in the blur of events. Most of the action takes place over 74 hours. Blomkamp catches its frantic activity with all the raw authenticity of a documentary, egged on by the rhythmic drive of Clinton Shorter's magnificent score.
"District 9" is smart, savvy filmmaking of the highest order.
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and another review here:
hollywoodreporter.com
AICN
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Every now and again there is a film so special, so much better than everything else, that it flummoxes you. DISTRICT 9 is that film for me right now. I've seen it three times now and it just keeps getting better.
How is that?
Well, this is a movie that provokes strong reactions throughout the film. It is disturbing on multiple fronts. The aliens themselves are pretty repulsive looking, buzzing with flies - you can tell that they stink and live in squalor... but that they are in this shape, this squalor and decay... that is a shame at another level. A shame that we recognize. Not from previous films, but from the Nightly News. As Jim Kelly said in ENTER THE DRAGON, "Ghettoes are the same all over the world. They Stink." They stink indeed, but even Jim "Dragon" Kelly had never seen anything quite like this.
When I went into this film, I knew that the budget was $30 million. I knew that no name actors were involved, that it was a first time director, who had impressive short film work and who was the man directing the HALO movie for Peter Jackson... back before that fell apart. So, I expected great things, but you know... you never know.
At the budget... well, JULIE & JULIA cost $10 million more. How big could this really be? THE HANGOVER cost $5 million more. How "big" could this film be?
This is EPIC science fiction taking place in a Shanty Town outside Johannesburg, South Africa. This is, to me, the most accomplished, provocative and intelligent science fiction I've seen in this new century. On Twitter I declared that this is the first great science fiction film of the 21st century - and was instantly slammed by people that love CHILDREN OF MEN and SUNSHINE. All I can really say is this, "Have you seen DISTRICT 9?" Because if you haven't. You can't even enter the conversation yet, and this is a conversation that you will want to be in on.
Try comparing this to previous Sci Fi. It doesn't really look like anything we've seen before. Sure, there's elements that you could draw from ALIEN NATION, but this is nothing like that. As one person at the AICN Austin DISTRICT 9 commented, the basic story in some ways resembles an old Francis Ford Coppola film in the 60's, but that was a Fantasy Musical... about as different as you could imagine tonally... although there's some unmistakable parallels. The aliens themselves look like nothing I've really seen before.
Many of you recall that I missed the last 20-30 minutes of DISTRICT 9 at Comic Con cuz I had a prior engagement that I had to get to. For 6 days, my wife and I discussed what we thought would happen next. We were so far off, so completely thrilled by where it did end up, that we literally wanted to see it again, that night. (sadly, we couldn't.)
Then there's the annoying factoid that the film doesn't have any actors that we've seen before... not just that, but if you check the one-sheets... you won't find the name of the actor, whom you'll want to know the name of throughout the film.
I'll get this out of the way real quick. His name is Sharlto Copley. He plays Wikus Van De Merwe. If you check his IMDB profile, you'll find that he's never acted before. That he apparently wrote, produced & directed a movie called SPOON in 2008. I know nothing about this film other than it apparently has supernatural elements and stars Rutger Hauer and was shot in Cape Town, South Africa and that I'm wildly curious to see it.
But yeah... Sharlto Copley is about as off the grid as you get. He was a producer on Neill's ALIVE IN JOBURG - and technically he did appear as a sniper in a moment in that film... his only prior acting experience apparently.
You'll come out of DISTRICT 9 stunned by Sharlto Copley. There's only one other performance that I've seen this year that struck me as amazing as this one... and that's Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa in Tarantino's Basterds. But Christoph is an accomplished actor. Just not a high profile one. Sharlto is UNKNOWN, an amateur. Someone that had no dreams or aspirations to be in front of the camera, he wanted to be behind the camera.
It also seems that Neill Blomkamp's directing technique was all Sharlto needed to add the layers of nuance that many of the most accomplished actors lack in even the best of movies. You'll be fascinated, mortified, offended by Sharlto's character in the first twenty minutes - and if I tell you now how you'll feel about him later... that'd be a spoiler. But one thing is certain. You'll want to see more of him.
Neill strove for realism throughout the making of the film. He found a real Shanty Town outside "Joburg" to shoot in - and the details he captured are amazing. The actors are hot, sweaty, it stinks - and you as an audience member can tell... visually... that it stinks... that it's disgusting, that on every surface is a vile infection waiting to cause you to get a battery of shots. There are animal body parts everywhere... many... simply were there. Others were brought in to the scenes - to give an "air" to the scenes and it works.
Then there's the effects.
The reason the creatures look like the creatures is that Neill - as a former visual effects geek - he knew what surfaces and looks can be rendered by a computer that would look 100% perfectly real in the environments. As a result. The Prawns, as they're called, look perfect. Not only that, but 98% of all the "Prawns" you see in this film... they were all accomplished through the performance capturing of a single performer. Again. Amazing.
Do not seek details about the story. I only do nationwide screenings for films on rare occassions. I try to do them whenever there's a film that I absolutely hope to see do well. And folks... DISTRICT 9 must succeed.
Why?
Because it is a truly great film. A film that asks us how we'll see future beings? Will we allow the ways of the past to dictate how we'll treat future sentient beings? But more than that, it's great filmmaking. Stunning filmmaking. The last 30 minutes or so -- it's concentrated badassery at a level that will have you cheering.
This is what ORIGINAL filmmaking looks like. What happens when you let a first timer have exactly what he needs to make a film that just fucking blows your mind away.
There's things here - like just how Wikus talks with the Prawn... how he understands them, but answers in English - it feels right. Especially in a city that has so many languages, and whose citizens must know multiple languages to simply exist. But when applied to a film like this. It's fantastic.
Remember how Deckard would never speak the street speak in BLADE RUNNER, but he understood it? There's a degree of that here. And a lot of how I feel about this movie was how I felt about BLADE RUNNER as a boy. I watched that 3 times the day it opened at the Fox Theater in Austin. And this is not BLADE RUNNER, though it kind of is. It's about a civil service employee that has to do a job with a being that the citizenry of his time holds in the lowest of esteem. This isn't future LA, but current Johannesburg, but if aliens landed there in 1982. So what we have is a speculative history that leads up to an alternate today.
Be prepared to feel a gamut of emotions - but know that the most prescient feeling you'll have coming out of DISTRICT 9 is that you are THRILLED. THRILLED to see something you could not have anticipated. Something new and wonderful and truly amazing.
And when you see it again - and you will see it again, you'll hear things you didn't catch the first time, you'll see details you missed. And upon third viewing, you see even more. This is THE FILM of 2009 so far - and it will take something I can't anticipate to knock it off that pedestal. DISTRICT 9 is my favorite of the year so far.[/align]
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but here is a blog that says D9 is a complete ripoff of ALIEN NATION and has about 10 comparisons to prove it: (
cinemablend.com)
