District 9 Film Review

Hey Guys,

This is my first post on my blog, and I have to start somewhere, so I am going to review an old film, but a great film. So here is my review of District 9 :)

“Hello little guy! It’s the sweetie man coming!” Does this sound like the kind of film where aliens and humans are battling out for the greater good? Well, District 9 is a film where an alien mother-ship has been dormant over Johannesburg, South Africa for 20 years, and its inhabitants have been living in a slum on land. They have been sharing the land with humans, but after years of sharing, the humans want out. The government have built a whole new camp, to move the aliens to, and the MNU have been given the task of evicting each alien resident. The MNU are also looking for illegal weapons, and they find them. While searching for weapons, Wikus Van De Merwe was sprayed in the face with some strange, black liquid. He thought he was ok. He was wrong.



This film is a sci-fi, but with hints of documentary, horror and action. The alien language and look make the sci-fi, the interviews over news shots and camera cuts made the documentary, the blood and guts make the horror, and the huge fire-fights make the action. The film reminds me a lot of Star Wars and that was a classic. I believe the film could go down in history with films like The Godfather, James Bond and Jaws.


The film is extremely realistic, with great visual effects. Some examples of this are things like blood splatter, not only on walls and the floor, but even on the camera lens. When people get shot, you can tell exactly where the bullet has impacted, and if it comes out, where it comes out. Also, the alien weaponry graphics are amazing. The kind of images that they made come out of the end of the alien weaponry was excellent, and it was so realistic. The lasers and lights coming out looked really good, and the timing involved was great. When they shot the building, and then the building “blew up” the timing was spot on.


At the start of this piece of movie excellence, you are naturally on the side of the human’s, and want the aliens to move away, because all you see is violent scavengers or “prawns” as they are nicknamed. But as the film goes on, you start to sympathise and empathise with these prawns. The way the humans act so in-humanely towards the aliens and act as if they don’t have feelings, you feel sorry for them. The humans torture and shoot without second thought these living beings in a way which would be unacceptable if they were humans. By the end of the film, you would want the aliens to stay. Another way you start to feel disgust towards the humans is when Wikus Van De Merwe is changing. He was a well respected government official, until he was sprayed with this biological weapon. Then, they wanted to run tests, and cause high levels of pain, and then just let him die. If he was a normal human, you would never inflict that kind of pain and torture on him, but to the humans, he was just “another one of them”.


Overall, I think this film is excellent, and I would think it is going to go down in history as a classic film. The camera work is excellent, and the visual and sound effects are amazing.