And I have lived to tell you that it is not all it’s cracked up to be.

You know, I heard a lot of good things about “District 9”. How it was a hard core sci fi, and that it’s the movie of the summer. Well it’s not, and no, the movie doesn’t suck, but it comes close. This movie tries to do too many things. It tries to be political, it tries to make a statement, while at the same time trying to be mindless fun.

First off I have no idea what went wrong here, hell this could be the exact film the film makers set out to make. I don’t know, all I know is the director Neill Blomkamp is having to much fun. Really he is. The first 45 minutes of the movie is shot and presented as a documentary. Then BAM all of a sudden it's an action film, not just any action film but a buddy cop film. You know, like “Lethal Weapon” but this is more in the vein of “Chill Factor”, ohhh yeah it’s that good. But then it goes back to being a documentary, seriously it does this like 4 times.

If you’re wondering why I have yet to mention the plot, it’s because I am not sure if it’s a secret or not. I mean to watch the trailer you would think the movie is in the vein of Independence Day. It’s not. The movie begins with a voice over, telling us the alien’s ship just landed over Africa 20 years ago. So after 20 years the people of Africa are sick of living with the aliens. Apparently they (the aliens) like to steal, and have sex with human hookers, so it’s up to Sharlto Copley’s character, Wikus to serve these aliens with an eviction notice. No, no my friends I kid you not, that’s the setup, he has to evict the giant shrimp aliens from their crappy shack homes.

 That’s about the first 30 minutes of the film. From here on the plot gets a little crazy, and pulls inspiration from many other sci fi films including “The Fly”. So I really feel going any further into the plot would be a major spoiler. I feel safe also saying that all the political statements this movie tries to make hurt the film. I mean really, for any of this film to work I have to like someone in it, and I don’t mainly because everyone is written like a villain from Robocop.  Wikus is the most unlikeable main character I have seen in a film in years. And he’s the hero here, it just doesn’t work not for me at least. And all the characters are just horrible people, I really wanted them all to die, I heard some people say, “you are suppose to feel that way”. To make you root for the aliens, well all the aliens except 2 are just as bad if not worse than the humans. 

Now before I tell you some of the things I just could not see past let me tell you this. I have always hated critics who treat every film as the same. I feel every film must be judged on what it sets out to do, not every movie has to be “Gone With the Wind”. So judging “District 9” on what it set out to do is what I am going to do right now. 1^st the film tries to be satirical it fails. 2^nd the film tries to be poignant it fails. 3^rd it tries to be loud it succeeds. 4^th it tries to deliver some never before seen kill shots it succeeds. 5^th it tries to pump up all the kiddies for the halo film, it succeeds here too. So all in all I think 3 out of 5 is a pass, not an A but a solid D, I mean there are some amazing kills in this film. Those kills are not the only thing in this film but they’re the only thing that works. I mean I love a good kill shot, but that’s all that works here, everything else fails.

Now for the things I just could not see past. 1^st the alien’s language sounds like a fax machine, or 56k modem but, every alien and every human communicate without a hitch, it’s never explained how. Did they all buy the alien Rosetta Stone? 2^nd the alien’s ship just hovers in the middle of the sky for 20 years, while it’s turned off. 3^rd America, England, Russia and all the rest of the world just leave it up to Africa to deal with the first alien contact Earth has, I don’t see that happening. These are all the things I had problems with in the first 30 minutes, I had tons more but it would cross the line into spoilerville. There are also tons of plot holes but once again spoilerville, and I won’t be going there not today at least. Maybe when the DVD comes out.

So in closing if you just want some really cool kills then District 9 is for you, if you need a plot to go with those kills, move along. And remember I love popcorn fun, but this movie is not popcorn fun. It runs 1 hour and 46 minutes long. Me and a few other people in the theather felt like we just finished a 3 hour movie.