Movie Review: District 9

WARNING: PLOT ENDING AND/OR DETAILS FOLLOW. DON'T WANT TO KNOW? THEN DON'T READ!

District 9. Probably one of the most well-kept secretive movies of all time (that I know of). By this, I mean, the trailers don't tell you crap. The trailers show you some scenes and a little bit of information, but everything in the film is shrouded in mystery. I'd like to point out that this is not one of those "ALIENS HAVE LANDED IN DC/NEW YORK/CHICAGO AND LET'S SEND IN OR ENTIRE MILITARY TO DESTROY THEM!" movies. In fact... it doesn't take place in the United States at all... or North America. No, it takes place in Johannesberg, South Africa. Hence the accents everyone has. The movie is filmed documentary-style for the most part. This means interviews, news reels, security camera footage and all sorts of things of that nature. But no, it is not another Cloverfield, so you don't have to worry.
In the movie, 20 years ago a ship appeared above the South African city of Johannesburg and just sat there for several months. The military managed to cut their way into the ship and found several malnourished aliens inside. After taking them down, they gave them food and a place to live. The aliens began to strike and raise hell, rioting and trying to survive lthrough hostile means, thus District 9 was born. Distric 9 and the "Humans Only!" signs are plays on District 6 and "Whites Only!" which was a real problem in South Africa several years ago.
In order to keep the aliens in order, the Multinational United (MNU) was created. The movie stars a young man who works for the MNU and goes into District 9 to evict the aliens and send them to a new place. During this, 2 alien men and a child (the aliens are referred to as "Prawns", by the way...) find something and use it to create some guel inside a canister. They hide the canister but the MNU agent finds it. It sprays him with a black liquid and he progressively gets sicker througholut the day. He is taken to a hospital with a bandaged arm and they remove the bandages to reveal an alien arm. The humans are incapable of operating the alien weapons due to the weapons needing alien DNA to work (they are part biological). This alien arm is capable of firing the weapon, so MNU plans to harvest his organs in order to allow humans to operate the weapons. The man gets away and re-enters District 9, one of the aliens, named Christopher, tells the man he can fix him. They go to retrieve the fuel that will take them up to the mothership on a "suicide mission" into the MNU facility. They retrieve it and bring it back, but Christopher tells the Hybrid man that her will come back in 3 years to fix him, since the aliens must come first in order to survive.

I liked this movie. A lot. It involves a lot of realistic aspects, not just military vs. aliens. There are some people in District 9 who eat the aliens in beliefs that they will become like them. They also trade food for aliens weapons, despite not being able to use them. I liked the aliens, particularly, because they have primitive needs but are extremly advanced, capable of creating biological weapons the size of a handgun with the effects of a bazooka. They scavenge for food, looking for everything they can to eat. They create makeshifts huts out of whatever materials they can find and wear scraps of clothes. This movie is much like a modern-day Holocaust, because the aliens are not allowed to leave, they are kept in these camps an dmust do as ordered. The movie is incredible and has a lot of good aspects. The aliens had great designs, as did the robot suit that was used later in the movie. The weapons used were not those annoying shiny, perfect, glowy weapons you see in most movies, but were in fact, a dulled, faded, battered old look. I give this movie an 8/10 and suggest watching it.