District 9 (D9) was easily one of the best movies of the year thus far. However, this is not saying much as the movie selection has been lack luster at best. Prior to District 9 I can think of only two films that I actually considered to be good. The first was Watchman, but it was too heavy handed and bombed in the box office. The second was Star Trek, which I still believe was an excellent movie and was enjoyable to watch, although the story was somewhat lacking. D9 falls right between the two.
While it is unfortunate that the Halo project fell through, it is nice to see some of the assets get reused, even though the good guys from Halo end up being the bad guys in D9. It was a treat to see the twist on the assets that would have been used, such as MNU battle rifles, the pelican that was the prawn command module, the modified warthogs, etc… Granted the movie in no way was billed as a recycled Halo. And, knowing nothing about it would not have hurt the movie. D9 is excellent in its own right.
There is an interesting mix of story elements, and gory violence. It works well without going too far in any particular direction. So, by the end of the film you feel full without leaving a bad taste in your mouth. All of the roles were played fairly well. It was nice to see some fresh faces that capably covered their characters. And, while this movie takes many queues from other scifi fair, it was relatively original.
One of the main reasons I really enjoyed this film is because it was not a sequel, prequel, or remake. I am so sick of the modern mentality of just remaking things. And not just good things, anything, so long as it isn’t original. And, to make things worse these shit films are being pushed by popular actors in order to pad the box office receipts. The era of the nostalgia film really needs to come to an end. But, I am not going to hold my breath, because these shit movies continue to rake in the cash. But, I digress.
The film was good, and I am recommending it to people. I am keeping this commentary short, because there are thousands of detailed reviews of the film, so this is just a general recommendation for my viewers. On my special undecim punctum scale, I have decided to give this film a solid 3. This means it was a pretty good film, but it is not one that I will frequently watch again in the future. Everyone reading this should go out and see the film and support something half way original.
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