The Energon Pub

I just saw District 9, and it was incredible. This was a movie that was both exciting and easy to understand, but at the both same time complex and intelligent. It wasn't your typical alien invasion film, it was more about social issues, like racism (kind of an apartheid analogy as it took place in South Africa), imperialism, and typical group mentality. So it was kind of like a social awareness movie, while also being an action packed alien movie. The acting was amazing and not at one point were you bored or wanted it to move along. This definitely will be one of the classic alien films of all time. Also, the special effects were amazing, never once did you think they were computer generated. I definitely recommend this one, go see it!

Thanks for the review.. I really want to see this movie.

I was on the fence about this, but you may have just convinced me. It did seem it was going to be "deep" not just summer fodder. So looks like I'll be seeing it.

i cant wait to see this.... i might stop by the theater tonight if i have time

Check out the reviews for it, they're top notch. People are calling it one of the top movies of the year. It was really that good.

Just got back from seeing it, and definitely the best movie I have seen this summer. I went into the theater expecting a cliched, yet good sci fi film; came out of theater after having seen one of the best, most original movies ever. My sister-in-law hates movies with aliens, and even she liked it.

just got back from watching it, and it was pretty amazing

Heard nothing but good things about this so I went to check it out. I was truly impressed. I came home and people asked me what type of movie it was and I honestly couldn't describe it.

Can't quite say it was the most 'enjoyable' movie and if you're going in for an action flick, you'll be bored out of your mind for the first hour. Go in with a more open mindset, and you'll enjoy it a lot more.

I saw this on Friday and was really impressed. I liked the faux-documentary stlye a whole lot, and honestly would have appreciated it if the movie just stayed that way, kind of Blair-Aliens Project. But yeah, good good movie.

Saw it for the 2nd time last night. This movie is definitly the best of the summer. The ending sequence alone is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend watching this movie.

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Holy crap the mech at the end is possibly the best mech I've ever seen in a movie...even better than the Transformers. I loved the variety of weapons it had!!!

Not too scary or gory?

SentinelA wrote:Not too scary or gory?

it was pretty disturbing and there was a good amount of gore.... still a great movie though

SentinelA wrote:Not too scary or gory?

Yeah, there's gore (heads exploding) and some shocking/disturbing moments, and quite a bit of language. But it's not to the point where you are scarred for the rest of your life, or have terrible nightmares. I took one of my friends, and she hates gore, and scary moments, but enjoyed the movie very much. It's awesome.

mcart01y327 wrote:

SentinelA wrote:Not too scary or gory?

Yeah, there's gore (heads exploding) and some shocking/disturbing moments, and quite a bit of language. But it's not to the point where you are scarred for the rest of your life, or have terrible nightmares. I took one of my friends, and she hates gore, and scary moments, but enjoyed the movie very much. It's awesome.

Funny you mention the language issue. As much as she enjoyed the movie, my girlfriend still, a week later, cannot stop complaining about how much profanity was included, seeing as 83% of Wikus' dialogue was the f-word. Just saying, I know this isn't very profound, but just wanted to amen-corner the language issue.

just watched it again.... even better the second time

I just went and saw it, mostly based on this thread. We thought it was pretty cool. Liked a lot about it. Liked the direction they took with it. It's what Cloverfield wishes it could be.

Dagon wrote:I liked the faux-documentary stlye a whole lot, and honestly would have appreciated it if the movie just stayed that way, kind of Blair-Aliens Project.

Bolded part ftw.

The documentary feel and presentation draw you in. You're mesmerized.
And then all of a sudden there's wall to wall action and gore.

In a way, to me, the movie felt like two different movies fighting against each other. On the one hand you have the intelligent and engrossing documentary showing the humans and aliens, on the other, you have aliens ripping arms out of sockets, people vomiting black ooze, fingernails falling off, heads exploding, etc. It was almost as though the gore was tacked on and gratuitous.

If they wanted a deep thinking actioner with blood, guts, and gore, they could've done just that, but didn't.

If they wanted an actioner with blood, guts, and gore, they had it. Just in the last half of the film.

If they wanted an intelligent, moving, sci-fi piece, they had it, but dropped the ball along the way.

The action was great, don't get me wrong, but it was just misplaced and felt forced. The gore was completely unnecessary to sell the story.

I was loving the movie throughout 80% of it, but then they switched it up and it just became a mess for me. It lost the emotional impact and went for...well hell, I don't even know where they were going with it, really.

Sad thing is, a lot of people are going to be misled by the marketing campaign. They think they're going to see an alien invasion flick with giant robots, carnage, and gore. That's not even close to what the final product is.

A good film, but not great. I will say, however, that the documentary half has enough draw (it's amazing, really) to keep your attention and keeps you going straight through to the end, even if you're not an action and/or gore aficionado. The first half is THAT good. You just have to know how it's going to end, what will happen, etc, so you stick through it.

In fact, the gore and action are a bit jarring, really. The first half of the film is so tame, so NOVA (on PBS) like, that you don't see the gore and action coming, you forget the commercials and trailers showing a badass robot suit, etc, and when it does come...you're just sitting there with your jaw on the floor and kinda thinkin' "WTF?!? Where did that come from?!"

If you're a Peter Jackson fan (I know, he didn't direct it, but his protege did), you'll love it.

If you're a gore/action fan, you'll be happy through the second half, but bored out of your skull throughout the first.

If you're looking for an intelligent piece, something with great depth and terrific performances, you've come to the right movie...for the most part. Just be prepared for "tacked on, and selling out to the masses" moments that kinda take away some of the impact.

I'll give it a solid B, but not much more than that.

EDIT: You've seen the trailers and the commercials, and yes, the aliens are just as ugly as they appear to be, but they're so lifelike, so realistic, it's amazing. And even with them being so ugly...I couldn't help but find an adorable quality to the alien child. At first you want to be as repulsed as possible, but then he grows on you, and his sense of wonder just makes a piece of you go "Awww." I know I can't be the only person who felt this way.

For example, when Wikus's arm becomes exposed and the boy says "You're like me!" and Wikus curses at him, you feel sorry for the little guy.

And the whole Prawn thing? Despicable. It was also part of what sold the story. Amazing, I never thought I'd find myself rooting for the ugly, deadly aliens, but this movie did it.

I think they initially needed the gore to show off how bad-as the alien weaponry really was and why the company was basically going to end one man's life in order to be able to obtain it, when was the real reason to everything. So of course they had to show the same gore later on when using the weaponry. They can't just show a person being shot without what happens earlier (sorry don't want too many spoilers) to those that are hit with it.

I thought it was a great movie. Probably the best overall movie that I have watched this year. I enjoyed ROTF for the pure entertainment value. District 9 had the story. I think they set it up well for a sequel (District 10?) to further elaborate on how they aliens came to be there.

I've recently watched this movie and agree that it's a great film. It's not perfect but it does much more "right" than it does "wrong" and the measure of what it does "right" far outweighs the "wrong" in the movie. Before I go on, please be know that I will include SPOILERS!!!

Right away, I need to mention that I did find aspects of this film disturbing. It has nothing to do with the gore or violence, which I'll touch upon later on. What I found disturbing was the fact that the movie does largely play out as a metaphor for things that have happened and continues to happen in real life. The movie isn't a preacher but realizing the inspirations for parts of the story does bring me back to reality while watching the movie and it's difficult not to feel the weight of despair when I realize that the situations that happen in the movie are not simply pulled out of thin air, that the reality of life in many parts of our world is uglier than this fiction.

Now as for the gore and violence, I think it was necessary to maintain cohesion of theme. The manner in which the movie was shot in terms of type of lens used to make the movie look like a documentary as well as the way the first portion of the movie is set up as a documentary establish an intent for a "gritty real world" feel for the movie. To not have depictions of violent damage would instead incur the cries of "it's not realistic enough". Considering the traumatic damage that modern high powered firearms can do to organic matter, I don't think the depiction of the violence in the movie is gratuitous at all considering much of the fighting is done with military weapons and alien technology. The film also doesn't linger on the gore. People get shot, explode, get blown away, whatever, and the camera moves on. There's no self-indulgence or masturbatory nature to the gore and violence in this movie. It's not glorified or revelled in.

One of the things that really bothered me was MNU facility where the aliens were experimented on, including Wikus. The way that he and the aliens were treated with apathy and when Wikus was experimented on(ie. the pain test) was more disturbing than seeing people being shot/blown up in the later action scenes. In a firefight, people usually try to shoot to disable or kill. I think that the concept of alien experimentation in District 9 could be partly inspired by the Nazi experimentation trials. Most people probably didn't think too much of it but I found the lab's display of alien cadavers as disturbing as cadavers of humans. The physiology, despite being fictional invention, is different but the impact of seeing a scene that implies experimentation on the dead and the living truly disgusts me.

Now despite my description of my reaction to the less savoury scenes...it's a good thing. Mission accomplished. Neill Blomkamp set out to disturb people with District 9. This isn't the kind of movie where people should be apathetic to the terrible situations that the aliens and humans experience. I should be disturbed by many parts of the film and not as a shallow "oh that's gross I don't want to see someone's entrails on the movie camera" reaction but a reaction where both my intellectual and emotional facilities are engaged.

I really like the sterile and antiseptic look of the world of District 9. From the pure documentary footage to the 3rd person footage when we follow Wikus' journey, the visuals remain the same where most have a lifeless pallor to their skin, and I don't mean "white" or "black", I mean there are no warm hues. It's a very cold reality where the true nature of people come right through, where no amount of make-up or sharp clothes can hide a person's nature. This works especially well when we can make more out of the emotive CGI aliens, especially Christopher Johnson's son, whose physical actions speak louder than any of the dialogue in the movie. This kind of visual detail really helps to establish the tone of the film from the first frame of footage.

I really liked the depiction of the aliens, the "prawn" as they're called. It was a more convincing portrayal than most works of fiction where aliens and/or non-humans are portrayed mainly bestial or vastly superior to humans. District 9's aliens are a believable balance of characteristics that are both familiar and odd to humans. One of the documentary people interviewed mentioned that to the aliens, setting a fire may seem ordinary where it seems strange and violent to us simply because they are aliens. There are many customs around the world that are peculiar to many humans so to have aliens display strange behavior is nice to see. At the same time, the aliens also are not totally random or chaotic. They display familiar qualities such as family structure. So seeing this balance of the bizarre and the mundane makes the aliens more believable to me than the extremes often shown in fiction.

I have to mention the powered armour. It was a very cool concept and along with the aliens, was very well done.

Finally, I do enjoy the ending. It is quite "Hollywood" in its sentiment but I like the way the story is open ended for a possible sequel yet also ties things up should a sequel never be made. Whatever happens, I can enjoy District 9 as a stand alone movie. I am not a fan of endings that are engineered to invoke extreme emotional reaction as a substitute for imaginative writing. District 9's ending wasn't overly sweet with an "everyone lives happily ever after" conclusion but it also didn't jab an emotional dagger into the hearts of the audience with a depressing ending.

I didn't come away from the movie with any immediate reaction of exaltation or disappointment. It did take a few hours for me to digest the experience, I was processing the film on a couple of levels. I do recommend this movie but I feel that my ignorance of the movie, aside from the teaser I saw a while ago, helped me have a fuller experience. I didn't have any solid expectation for the movie so I wasn't distracted by any preconceptions.

Im going to be seeing it this week. Since ive heard rave reviews and theres a whole lot bullshit movies in theatres right now. So it also whens by default!

I've seen the movie a few weeks ago, the plot of the movie is intersting but there's a few plot holes in the movie that's kinda werid.

I just saw it this weekend and I have to say it was great.