Welcome to my life. Day 5744. Finally saw that District 9 flick. Had to sneak in after buying a ticket to Harry Pooper. Here's my review:
Ok. So these slimy, sluggy aliens land on our planet. In South Africa, of all places. Haven't they heard of Apartheid? So what do they do? Do they use their superior technology to wipe us out and take over? No! They settle down in a shanty slum like something out of a refugee crisis you'd see on CNN. And they just chill there for twenty years! Until they become a burden on the city and need to be moved to another slum.
In charge of this move is a hapless bureaucrat named Wikus (pronounced Vikus), played by some guy I never heard of named Sharlto Copley. Wikus is the sort of marginal character that usually gets eaten by a T-Rex in the first act of a Jurassic Park movie. Yet here he is not just the main character, but the only one! While going door to door evicting Prawns (a derogatory name for the aliens), Wikus finds some special extra-terrestrial dildo that squirts in his face and gradually begins to turn him into... yes, a Prawn. First of all, there is no scientific precedence for any species suddenly changing its DNA and becoming another species. Genetic evolution is something that occurs over thousands of years, not twenty minutes. Unless the aliens themselves are that way because this jizz turned them into these sluggy monsters. Which means that they might actually resemble humans in their natural state which could have been an interesting subplot but the film doesn't really go into that. No, Wikus just has a very bad case of the Jeff Goldblums. The first thing to 'turn' is Wikus' hand, which becomes a sort of reptilian claw. But here let's take a pause to examine the aliens themselves.
The Prawns are definitely more animal than human. They live like pigs, with social graces that would make Klingons cringe and their motivation does not seem to extend beyond their obsession with cat food. Another unexplained phenomenon. Like, what's in cat food that's not in dog food? They trade all their weapons and technology for the stuff. Which brings us to the next point. Are they aimless, stupid creatures or are they actually far more intelligent than we are? Their technology is obviously more advanced than ours. I mean, they got here, for Christ's sake! Yet they live in pitiful squalor and do everything we tell them to do and just basically bend over every time a human raises his foot. WTF?! It's hard to have any respect for these aliens. Why did they make their weapons in the first place if all they're good for is trading for cat food? Is there something in our atmosphere that makes them retarded?
But get this, only the Prawns can use their own weapons which require some sort of genetic signature just to press the trigger. This brings us back to Wikus, who with his new Prawn claw, now finds himself able to fire Photon Cannons and such. This, of course, makes him tres valuable and pretty soon he finds himself on an operating table, ready to be dissected for some reason that went right over my head. Wikus, with his newly acquired super-strength, breaks out of the lab and goes into hiding in District 9, the alien slum.
The rest of the plot revolves around re-acquiring the E.T. dildo as it apparently is the key to the Prawns leaving Earth. To go where is also a mystery. Presumably they will just dock on some other planet and become a nuisance on some other species. What they should do is grab some of those guns that only they can use and take over our planet like any normal alien would!
In the end, this movie didn't make a whole lot of sense. The special effects were pretty cool with lots of gooey gore and alien splattering goodness so it totally qualifies for Puke Flick of the Week. But in the end I'd rather feel terror for my aliens than pity. Get back to me when these Prawns grow a pair.
2 stars.
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