Reviews

District 9 is highly derivative - I can't help but think that the flood of 10s awarded to this movie must have been given by younger people who haven't seen a lot of movies. Basically, this is Alien Nation meets The Fly, combined with a half-baked, out of date political allegory.

Worker bee aliens arrive over a major city and take up residence in a local slum after a period of years. This is of course the exact setup of Alien Nation. Our hero, initially broadly played as a geek, and later fluctuating between geek and self-interested hero, is sent to move the aliens further outside Joberg. He is infected and begins to become an alien, which his fingernails peeling off and his teeth falling out. These portions, which went on WAY too long, were identical to the transformation in The Fly. I mean exactly the same - fingernails and teeth. The portion of the film devoted to our hero's transformation consists of him vomiting and tearing off new pieces of his body for 45 straight minutes. Um, we get it. The director is clearly a master of restraint.

Aside from ripping off other movies (in the case of the Fly, much better movies), the style of the film is reflective of some bad cinematic trends of the past few years. A documentary style (which disappears for the middle hour of the film, only to reappear in the last five minutes) adds something for a little but eventually provides an unfortunate excuse for a lot shaky-cam. At least a dozen people walked out of my small theater, including my wife, because they thought they were going to throw up. Also, the main villains of the piece (the standard evil corporation seeking weapons technology from the Alien movies and some heartless mercenary types) are incredibly one dimensional.

The political allegory doesn't make a lot of sense, considering that the aliens are meant to represent native Africans suffering under apartheid. The aliens are not native, and were rescued from their ship and given a place to live, which they proceed to tear apart. I found myself wondering what was owed to these creatures - but every human is so despicable you are given no choice with respect to a rooting interest.

Basically, I didn't like much about the film until the last 30 minutes, when the action kicked in. Alien weapons are employed and cause considerable havoc. And you are meant to enjoy the site of humans being slaughtered by this technology. My enlightened San Francisco audience loved seeing people burst apart when hit by laser beams. The effects are good, and you feel for the hero's plight, if not the aliens.

By the way, nothing about the aliens is ever explained. I don't need every last bit spelled out for me, but the film proceeds as if the aliens and humans have never communicated in 27 years. Yet they can understand each other's language. No one knows why the aliens are here, if we could help them leave or prosper, who had enslaved them, anything about other aliens, etc. It just makes no sense, and its lazy.

Anyway, if you want to see a confused gross-out ripoff of a few other sci-fi movies with a couple of good action scenes at the end, this is your flick.Watch for the score on this one to drop quickly once people older than 20 start to report in.

While reading the user reviews of this documentary, it appears to me that a lot of people may have missed some critical subtext in the film. Most reviews tend to focus on the undeniable artistic beauty represented by Phillipe's walk between the World Trade Center towers. However, by the end of the film I felt that the filmmaker used contrasting statements and emotions of the characters to highlight the selfishness and narcissism that can sometimes go hand in hand with the drive of an artistic genius.

By the end of the film, Phillippe has become the toast of the New York for his daring and beautiful walk between the towers. He has charges against him dropped in exchange for another performance for children. To celebrate, he promptly devours the attention and beds the very first groupie he runs into.

Contrast this with the fate of his conspirators, who faced similar risks of arrest and punishment for no reward. They remain anonymous, several of them were arrested and deported. One of Phillippe's main supporters, Jean-Louis I believe, is shown crying when thinking of the aftermath. Not weeping at the beauty of the act, but instead at the callous disregard of Phillippe, who has received what he needed from his "friend" and discarded him, moving on to bigger and better things.

Even more sad is the case of Annie, the self described introverted and shy woman who made Phillippe's dreams her dreams. They clearly have a twisted relationship - Annie views Phillippe as some sort of beautiful deity who can do no wrong,a nd Phillippe views her as a placeholder for more beautiful fawning groupies to come. When Phillippe drops her like a hot potato the instant he becomes famous, she can only continue to obsess about the beauty of his wire walk. Nearly 30 years later, it is clear that this rather sad relationship is her greatest pride in life.

In the end, this film highlights personality types. There are certain people, artistic and driven, who can accomplish miraculous things. But often, that artistry and drive is fueled by extreme narcissism that ignores the impact of a person's actions on others. For example, Phillippe could care less that if he falls or drops his balance stick, he could kill a totally innocent person.

He also does not value the assistance and loyalty of these other people, who help him out of respect for his abilities or a desire to be a part of something. Once they have served his purpose, they disappear. Because in his mind, they were no longer necessary, and were only ever insignificant rocks circling a great star.

The film is an interesting character study. My only complaint is that too much time was spent slowly chronicling the largely dull build up to the caper, instead of analyzing the benefits that accrued to one man at the expense of a multitude of friends who were promptly discarded in the birth of a star.

War of the Worlds just might be the most disappointing movie Spielberg has ever released. There is a lot of good material here, mostly due to Spielberg's undeniable skill and the phenomenal special effects. However, the story is illogical and poorly thought out. I would say there are plot holes, but you need to have a plot first in order for there to be a hole in it. Maybe that was Spielberg's strategy - wow them with special effects to cover up for the lack of a coherent plot or character development. Reminds me of Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich, to be honest. This movie was just as flashy and pointless as Bad Boys II or Godzilla, without the feel good payoff.

There simply is no plot, and only bare bones character development, all at the beginning of the film. Basically, Cruise and family try and escape from aliens who are killing everyone. Then the movie ends. I couldn't believe it. Why even have a script? This should have been a silent movie, except for the dreaded horn that the tripods blow before they start slayin'.

For people looking for logical errors, I submit to you the following: (i) the camcorder that works after all electrical and mechanical devices have been knocked out, simply because Spielberg thought it created a nifty shot, (ii) the idea that Cruise could drive New Jersey's last automobile for miles on roads full of stopped cars, (iii) a plane crashing on top of a house that Cruise is hiding in - it manages to destroy an entire neighborhood, but not his car, (iv) the entire concept of tripods being hidden for a million years about 10 feet below a city street, and (v) if the aliens are powerful enough to ride lightning bolts and create unstoppable killing machines a million years ago, how come that couldn't pack some Sudafed or control the tripods from space?

One big question for someone out there - what was the deal with the birds? Near the end, Cruise is shouting something about birds, but his voice is covered up by noise, and the soldiers respond with some shouting that was unintelligible. Maybe they had the bird flu. Who knows. The screenwriter sure doesn't.