Reviews

Over-rated by nearly every professional critic, this film is not-in-a-good-way creepy: a shallow mutant flick with a gratuitous incest theme that provokes eye rolls instead of thought, just cheap sexploitation of "genetics" gone wrong.

The monster is absurdly endowed with every biological characteristic the film's creators could remember from other films.

The actors sound like they are reading, and their characters are irritatingly incompetent and irrational. Cardboard cutout mad scientists on paper-thin sets making one implausible decision after another followed by an inevitable but charmless killing-spree does not make good sci-fi or horror.

Why anyone would call this film "fresh" is a mystery to me. I find it disturbing how much love it has gotten from critics and viewers.

Do you dig highly stylized animated monster robots trying to kill rag dolls for no apparent reason? Then this film is definitely for you!

Barely over an hour and barely filling that, 9 is an incoherent parable about the evils of science and technology — yet another machines-gone-bad apocalypse premise, and it goes downhill from there.

Just about the only thing is has to offer is some interesting design and animation, but I didn't find the odd little rag-doll characters themselves interesting at all — just odd. Supposedly they were animated by the soul of the scientist who created them, but they didn't seem to have any soul to me: they were as flat as characters can get, their interactions meaningless. None of them changed, none of them had anything interesting to say or do. They weren't cute or funny, or really anything at all.

And the story is just not there: it's just a series of Rube-Goldberg-esquire battles with evil robots stitched together by arbitrary and obscure motivations. It's never really clear why anything is happening. "We must get the thingamabob from the monster robot." Okay. Whatever. It's powerful. It's a ... well, it's a powerful thingamabob. And the bad robot has it. Better get it back, I guess! Or something! Should only take about an hour ...

It's just an hour, but don't waste your time on 9.

This film seemed promising out of the gate with some nice design and mood setting, but falls apart quickly with extremely sloppy plotting. It doesn't make much sense to begin with, and the non sequiturs really start to pile up after the half way mark. I was particularly baffled by a lengthy tangent into a tunnel that led to ... a decision to switch to another set right away. Such jarring, illogical transitions leave the viewer feeling jilted. Why pay attention if the storyteller is just going to throw away the last ten minutes?

By the third act, the film is almost incomprehensible, and there's nothing left to do except watch the not-so special effects ... which aren't even worth watching anymore. Although the design is interesting earlier in the film, it falters along with the plot: the amusement park ride in a boat down long chutes and high waterfalls, which mysteriously leads upwards to the surface of the Earth, not only defies logic, but is also fake-looking, digitally processed to death.

And there's no reward for sitting through all of this. The triumphant emergence onto the surface is so rushed and cheezeball that I didn't even get a flicker of feel-good.

This film manages to make 90 minutes feel like twice as much. Other than some intriguing design work and a nice set up in the first 20 minutes, it has nothing to offer. What a waste of movie-making resources. Blyeah.

Didn't read the book. Guess I should.

There's no need for me to come up with my own clever review title, because someone else said it perfectly: "ultimately dumb."

This movie had so much going for it that I was particularly ticked off that Shyamalan dropped the ball. I went into this movie with little respect for Shyamalan. (Unlike most people, apparently, I never liked The Sixth Sense: thought it was tedious.) By half way through the Signs, I was thinking maybe I'd underestimated him. The storytelling idea here is really good: an alien invasion from the lonely perspective of ordinary people, who have no idea what's going on. The mood is fascinating.

But Shyamalan snatches defeat from the jaws of victory!

It's often been said that stories, like planes, are easy to get of the ground and fly, but very difficult to land. Shyamalan crashes this story with what may be the dorkiest plot fumble in the history of otherwise-good SF stories: the critical alien weakness turns out to be a severe allergy to water.

Oh, dear.

Back in my youth, I was an aspiring SF writer. I submitted a whole bunch of stories to SF magazines. Nearly all were rejected without explanation. The few polite notes that did explain the rejections all slammed me for numerous basic storytelling misdemeanours. Those editors easily picked up on practically any shortcoming as the basis for a rejection.

Shyamalan's dorky climax wouldn't have gotten past even the most forgiving of those editors. And yet he gets to make movies for millions.

The world is weird.

I heard a few anti-hype warnings that District 9 was "not all that great," but after seeing it I think that the hype about this film is deserved. I read every negative comment posted on IMDb about the film (as of Aug 22), and did not agree with many of them.  Most gave no reason for disliking the film and focused instead of creative ways of saying how much they hated it. Here are my responses to nine specific criticisms I did find, some of which were repeated many times (especially #s 1, 2, and 3):

CRITICISM #1: Too long!

RESPONSE: It's true, some scenes could have been cut, and I don't think this criticism is incorrect.  But I was never bored. Something is almost always moving District 9's plot forward. It compares favourably to many other films in this regard.  It doesn't have interminable exposition like the Matrix sequels, or interminable space shots like 2001, or interminable hobbit-gazing like Return of the King. There is a long action sequence that starts to eat away at the film's intelligence, but I also think it's a minor concern.

CRITICISM #2: Too much gore!

RESPONSE: I thought the gore was an appropriate extension of a more integral element of the story: the grossness of the slum.  Everything in this film is dirty and disgusting, and for good reason!

CRITICISM #3: Too much swearing!

RESPONSE: Yes, Wickus definitely did swear a lot, but objecting to it is prudish and naive.   As any soldier or veteran knows, the F-word is used like punctuation in violent situations.

CRITICISM #4: The film hits you over the head a bit with simplistic moralizing. The apartheid analogy is too blatant. At a couple points, one of the interviewed experts tells us exactly how we're supposed to be interpreting the action, and it's heavy-handed.

RESPONSE: I agree that there are couple moments of expositional bludgeoning, but I can only think of a couple.  The rest of the film is pure allegory, and I see no reason why it needs to be subtle. Just because the analogy to apartheid is clear doesn't make it illegitimate. Lots of great films about racism have been blatant with their moral message! District 9 is no more morally simplistic than any other cautionary tale about racism.  Blomkamp tells the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story of apartheid in an original way — not simplistic at all.

CRITICISM #5: Too many implausible that's-so-fake moments, especially the amazing command that racist humans seem to have of the prawns' clicky, glottal-stoppy alien language. No universal translators here, and yet they have no trouble talking to each other at all!

RESPONSE: The language barrier is a nearly impossible SF problem to solve.  Realistically depicting a language barrier with aliens is so tedious that it will destroy any story. Blomkamp chose his compromise, and it's no worse than a lot of others, and maybe better: the aliens have been there for 20 years, after all. Maybe some communication is plausible.  While a racist is not normally interested in learning the language of an oppressed minority group, these are alien visitors: the human interest in learning would have been high, even for racists.

CRITICISM #6: It makes no sense that the prawns fail to use their superior physical strength and powerful weapons to overthrow their oppressors.

RESPONSE: Of course it makes sense!  Again, it is the critics who are being simplistic and naive, not the film. It's a matter of clear historical record that poverty and hunger can pacify almost any population, preventing organized resistance, and that oppressed minorities are surprisingly passive and underestimate their own strength.  Not only is it realistic, it's actually one of the major moral points of the film — a point overlooked by the same people protesting that the film is too "morally simplistic" for them.  Furthermore, the story makes it clear up front that most of them are "workers" who aren't too bright and take no initiative.  Thus it is to be expected that prawn violence is erratic and impulsive and not an effective resistance.

CRITICISM #7: The cat food thing "trivializes" the prawns and the moral message.

RESPONSE: Get over yourself!  It was a bit of comic relief.  Who knows what aliens will want to eat?

CRITICISM #8: There are several SF clichés in the film.

RESPONSE: Yes, there are, but the measure of an SF film is not whether or not it has clichés but how many and how much it depends on them: District 9 only has a few. Yes, a big hovering mothership has been done in many (many, many) other first-contact movies.  And you can hardly go to an SF film anymore without seeing the ol' infected-with-alien- DNA thing.  However, after decades of highly productive SF storytelling — 700+ films since 1970! — anyone who thinks that SF is only good if it's completely original is pretty much doomed to be disappointed.  There's just no such critter any more.  The problem with most bad SF films is that they are mostly or entirely driven by their clichés. District 9 contains a few, but it is not limited to them, and a great deal of originality mitigates their impact.

CRITICISM #9: I hate hand-held camera work!  It makes me dizzy and sick!  Why do directors do that?

RESPONSE: Because it's effective and interesting and it doesn't bother most people. If you're one of the unlucky ones, just don't watch it on the small screen, and don't blame the film!

CONCLUSION: District 9 offers a much that we bemoan the lack of in science fiction: an original setting, an original premise, intricately conceived aliens, no-name actors, quality FX that are there to serve the story, lots of uncomfortably gritty realism, and action that makes sense for the situation. District 9 is undoubtedly the best SF film in several years, and one of the most unusual and interesting ever made.

(Note: very slight spoilers.)

Hulk like about movie:

* Smashing good!

* Acting good!

* Betty pretty!

* Script pretty good too. For action movie.

But Hulk not like some things:

* Smash bad hulk creature head flat. No work. Then choking work? Hulk confused!

* Bad scientist shallow mad scientist stereotype. Hulk think silly.

* Hulk think too much sensitive Hulk in this movie. Hulk not sensitive, Hulk SMASH.

But Hulk forgive. Still good movie. Hulk never better! Raaaahr!

Hard to believe this is the same director who gave us Shawshank! I wish Darabont had just tried to entertain/scare us, instead of trying to add depth to this horror film. The characters are all paper-thin walking clichés, but not for lack of trying to make something more out of them — trying much too hard. Most of them talk like they are trying to make a philosophical point to the audience.

Much of the action of the film concerns their shocking degeneration under pressure, and this is one of the main complaints about the film I've read in other comments: people don't think that's realistic. But that's not the problem.

Here in Vancouver in 2006ish, we had a "boil water advisory," and ACTUAL FIST FIGHTS broke out at local stores over bottled water. Fist fights! There was no actual water shortage mind you ... we were just supposed to boil before drinking it. But people actually attacked each other. For real. Welcome to the human race. We really DO get violently bonkers under pressure.

So the crazy human behaviour wasn't really the problem with the film. But the plausible psychology doesn't forgive clumsy, irritating dialogue, plus several other problems:

* Generally goofy-lookin' monsters. Too rubbery! Can't we do better than that these days?

* Inconsistent monster powers! Monsters that can rip some poor guy's chest off ... but then a moment later can hold 'em off with a broomstick!

* Giant spiders? Really? Arg. It's been years since I read it, but I could pretty much swear that there were NOT giant spiders in the novella.

* The old monsters coming out of the body cliché is irritating enough in any movie that isn't Alien(s), but this film did NOT need to do that, and actually went out of its WAY to do it. Groan.

* Completely irrational "don't go in there" character choices.

Etc. Just a bunch of stereotypical lame horror movie stuff ... with a failed attempt to be deep and meaningful spread all over it.