DISTRICT 9 Film Review - 29/9/09

A spaceship arrives on Earth and turns out to harbour several thousand drones of an insect race who seem to have no control of their ship or themselves. They end up getting all transported to Earth and stuck in a shanty town and get left to themselves. With a number of political wrangles and demonstrations from the local human populace the authorities after 20 years decide to forcefully evict them to a new area far away from humanity. Unbeknown to the humans it turns out that not all are drones and that some of the 'prawns' (which is the derogatory term humans use for them) are actually far superior and have been spending the last few years trying to return to their ship and leave Earth after their disgusting treatment at the hands of their human masters. Filmed in a documentary style the MNU organisation which is the overseer of the aliens sets up a task-force with a new leader in place to push forward the major eviction. After becoming infected by an alien substance he actually starts to side with the alien underdogs.

This story can be taken on various levels: It has an amalgam of several sci-fi stories which have covered this ground before. But it is also very plausible for it's current thinking of an underclass thrown aside and treated like shit. If the human race can do this to each other they certainly would not have a problem exploiting an alien species. The war & weapons faction features strongly with the MNU going to any lengths to harvest the alien technology even at the expense of it's own people.

If you avoid the political overtones then you have big guns blazing and lots of explosions as bounty hunters take on the aliens and the local inhabitants. Let's face it if an alien weapon can reduce someone to just a puddle of blood then everyone would want one!

A timely reminder that humanity can bring out the worse in us . . .



POPCORN RATING: