Movie Review: District 9
Apr. 5th, 2010 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2Just finished watching this movie and overall I was impressed.
Given that CGI characters were so utterly essential to this story, I was a little nervous but they were very well done. There seemed to be a lot of thought put into the look of the Prawns and how they moved/talked/interacted and I liked that. Secondly, it wasn't all clinical and clean and welcoming as the arrival of aliens is usually portrayed. In addition, the fate of the aliens was to be exploited (and dumped) by a large corporation rather than be welcomed/revered/feared.
That this movie was set in South Africa was ultimately distracting for me - it was to easy to pass the movie off as a crude and obvious parable about apartheid rather than a broader portrait of exploitation and manipulation in a capitalist society.
In the final analysis though, the movie had a protagonist who was highly believable (and very well acted for a debut) and a story that was convincing, matched by excellent CGI effects and tense action sequences.
Given that CGI characters were so utterly essential to this story, I was a little nervous but they were very well done. There seemed to be a lot of thought put into the look of the Prawns and how they moved/talked/interacted and I liked that. Secondly, it wasn't all clinical and clean and welcoming as the arrival of aliens is usually portrayed. In addition, the fate of the aliens was to be exploited (and dumped) by a large corporation rather than be welcomed/revered/feared.
That this movie was set in South Africa was ultimately distracting for me - it was to easy to pass the movie off as a crude and obvious parable about apartheid rather than a broader portrait of exploitation and manipulation in a capitalist society.
In the final analysis though, the movie had a protagonist who was highly believable (and very well acted for a debut) and a story that was convincing, matched by excellent CGI effects and tense action sequences.
