District-9

I haven't checked my mail in 2 years:

District 9

I first ran across a trailer of District 9 a year ago after I received a hysterical e-mail from an old school friend saying simply ‘OMG ALIENS!’. Having forwarded this e-mail to everyone in my mailing list, as everyone should do with such e-mails I became interested in this movie. It stands out from the crowd. Here’s why.

-Its south African, which is unusual.

-It has the best aliens since Alien and Aliens

-Battle suits. Well, one at least.

-The real character is called Wikus van der Merwe which is the complete opposite to for example Harry Stamper or James Bond in movie hero awesome naming.

I’m gonna take longer then usual to explain the story because its actually fairly complicated and unhollywoodishly interesting. In an effort to hold on to your interest I’ll throw in some badass pictures. All for the people!

Aliens arrived on Earth 20 years ago. Not in New York or Washington but Johannesburg which is best known for its high number of professional burglars and being the proud world record holder for most murders per square kilometer. The aliens make no attempt at communication and eventually the army decides to check their giant hovering space cruiser out.

They find close to a million starved and witless aliens who are leaderless and confused. To properly care for them they are taken to a temporary camp which, in true African fashion, immediately turns into a horrible crime infested slum. Main offenders here are gangs of Nigerians who take to illegal drug smuggling, gun trade and cannibalism almost as soon as the first alien arrives. Damn, those Nigerians are bad people.

The right figure is obviously no Nigerian

Our hero, mr van der Merwe is sent by his bos, Piet Smit, a name almost as un heroic and horribly Dutch as van der Merwe’s to evict the aliens and relocate them to a nearby tent camp which even Wikus knows is akin to a concentration camp. The idea is to separate the aliens from the human population who, after 20 years of alien presence can’t stand them anymore. The story isn’t as complicated as you’d expect after watching all other alien movies of the past years (sarcasm factor 6) but it kicks off nicely once Wikus gets infected with alien DNA and slowly turns into one of them. And when I say slowly I mean one arm turns immediately and the rest barely at all save for a few bloody spots on his body. Wikus flees to district 9, the afore mentioned horrible alien slum and contacts one of the aliens who conveniently has a cure aboard the mothership, where they can’t get unless they steal something from the army.

And then, it gets as interesting as it gets stereotypical. The good kind. The violent kind. Wikus decides to get as many alien weapons as he can from the cannibalistic Nigerians (bad people) and blasts his way in. Other stuff happens after that but I was too distracted by the awesome violence to care.

Explosions! Oh how I have missed liking explosions. I still hate Michael Bay with a sun-like intensity for ruining my love of explosions with his carnival of stupidity but they’re back here and they rock. Alien weapons never fail to entertain especially if they make people explode. Blood explosions. It boggles the violence-saturated mind even further.

I could write forever about how awesome the action is but I’d expose even further that I usually don’t give a damn about either story or characters as long as there are explosions and that would make me look even more like a Michael bay fan and that thought sickens me.

District 9 is an incredible movie, doubly so because it was made in South Afrika. Hollywood should take notice and try to copy this concept as fast as possible. I want more south Africans on murder sprees with alien weapons. Go Wikus!

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