District 9

I can't really bring myself to continue reviewing bad movies, so I'll continue along with District 9 before doing Brüno and Public Enemies (which wasn't so much bad as it was not very good).

District 9 is a very, very hyped up movie. It has been hyped up since before it was even District 9 (the film began life as the highly awaited Halo adaptation, but video game developers Microsoft and Bungie couldn't get on the same page with the studio, hence District 9). And it does, in fact, live up to the hype. District 9 is a perfectly excellent sci-fi actioner, and I have no complaints.

Well, except for one. This movie was hyped as SO DIFFERENT. This movie will BLOW YOUR MIND. "Unconventional" was tossed around a lot. And the first act or so does. The movie is a rather stunning apartheid allegory with creepy aliens who are still somewhat sympathetic, and it really works on that level, and it's very unlike anything we've really seen in cinema. And then in the third act, it turns into a run-of-the-mill shoot-'em-up. Like, seriously. The entire third act is main character Wikus and his alien companion Christopher sneaking into a lab, and then shooting their way out, and then the movie is over, just barely returning to some semblance of drama at the ending (about which, the ending is very sentimental, and I like it, but it really doesn't feel like the same movie as the beginning).

Let's talk again about the first act, as it was my favorite part of the movie. The film opens with Wikus (played to perfection by Sharlto Copley, who should get SO MANY ROLES after this film) recording some kind of office home video for the MNU, who are in charge of quarantining the aliens. This is juxtaposed with documentary footage that takes place, chronologically, after the film's conclusion. The horrific images of abuse of these aliens in District 9, juxtaposed with goofball, Michael Scott-esque Wikus, is truly unsettling, and creates a dichotomy that continues through much of the movie.

I don't want to say the film gets bad at any point, because it really doesn't. And I'm a sucker for sentiment, so the ending doesn't bother me, and clearly this movie has something to say. I mostly just am let down by the lagging third act, which degenerates an otherwise sublime film into the merely average. It does the job better than most other sci-fi films, but I had hoped that District 9 would be something more for the entire running time, and not just the first 2/3rds.

B+