District 9 review

Ok so I recently saw District 9 and thought it was blog review worthy.

First of all it wasn't what I expected at all. I saw the trailers and expected another "aliens attack, world is in doom" movie. But of course it wasn't. For those of you who don't know the story revolves around a spaceship hovering above Johannesburg, the aliens are sent to a shanty town to live (District 9) by order of the MNU (Multi-National United) here the Humans and Prawns (as they were called, sort of a racist slang) lived happily. Fast forward 20 years into 2010 and things are going bad the "prawns" and humans relationship is starting to break and the MNU decide to move them further out of Johannesburg to a place where they can not be disturbed (District 10) it is Wikus van der Merwe's job to round them up and move them to the other district. But he stumbles accross a fluid that one of the "Prawns" is working on which slowly starts turning him into one of the aliens. He seeks refuge in District 9 with the "prawns" and finds Christopher Johnson (The aliens are given Earth names) Chris eventually agrees to help Wilkes stop the alien transformation if Wilkes can get the fluid back that MNU has so Chris can go to the mothership. Thats just a brief outline. I don't want to spoil anything.

Now obviously the first thing you notice is the movie is set in a documentry style talking about the aliens and Wilkes operation and setting the scene of the aliens and humans parts in the story. The other thing you realise is just how poltical this movie is. I think it resonates with Australians well because of the on going "Boat People debate". The aliens them selves were Immigrants and seeked refuge to a better place only to find them selves in poor housing with little rights. This is in ways similar to the "boat people" being put in detention centres waiting to become australian citizens. Although the "Prawns".
When the MNU is rounding up the "Prawns" they do it peacefully but many of them disagree with the move and act out and end up getting shot or killed, they are then experimented on later in a biolab as the MNU is also trying to disover how to use the "Prawn's" weapons as it can only be used with their DNA. Wilkes can also acheive this once he starts turning into an alien and is used for similar testing.
Like I said the conditions they are living in are quite poor, even poorer than the poorest og the south africans are living in. The "Prawns" have to fend for them selves by dealing with the Nigerian war lords by trading guns and stolen goods for cat food (the choosen food of the "Prawns"). The government offers no assistance in anyway apart from the housing, they can not get jobs or anything (again boat people?)

The poltical aspects are certainly there and are quite evident of similar situations going in the world with refugees all over the world. What I liked most about this story is that instead of making the alien race superior and wanting to destroy the world; they are the good guys, the underdogs, the refugee. So instead of feeling sorry for the human race you feel for this alien race and are finding yourself barracking for them (and not your own race). I can't say I have seen many other movies where this happens, apart from maybe E.T. Which shows a similar story in a way, Alien refugee - humans want it for experiments - trying to get home - befriends a human. But District 9 pushes the poltical side of the story more with what the government ideally wants with these aliens (technology)

All in all I quite enjoyed the political satire of modern day issues with sci fi. I spent the whole time thinking "boat people are the least of Kevin Rudd's problem if this happens". Like I said i also liked making the aliens the good guys (we are seeing a lot of this role reversal stuff lately) I actually found myself comparing it to Avatar but its like reverse Avatar.
District 9 - Aliens come to Earth -> aliens get screwed over
Avatar - Earth goes to Pandora -> aleins get screwed over

Both have similar outcomes but the Human Race's part in each is completly different.

I give it 4/5 (guess i should review Avatar now, been a while since i saw it though)