The basic story is this, a large alien space ship comes to a stop over Johannesburg in South Africa and after some time, humans go to the ship and break in to discover the aliens, referred to as prawns by humans, sick and starving. The prawns are rescued and nursed back to health, but are quickly treated like second class citizens by being kept together in one segregated area. The human side of the story comes into play when you see South Africans complaining about the prawns, saying they have diseases, they are dangerous, not to be trusted, etc. It is a direct play on apartheid in South Africa, though ironically the Africans are the ones advocating apartheid along with everyone else in the narrative of the film. You also get a touch of corporate malfeasance via the cold, calculated actions of the MNU corporation in the film.
Most of the actors in the film are not familiar to me at all by name, but all the performances are solid. Peter Jackson puts his producer muscles behind the film which results in fantastic production values. The visual and special effects are second to none, and it is easy to see why District 9 was nominated for Oscars in said categories. The prawns are rendered so vividly that you forget you are seeing CGI!
Video: Crisp clean picture with nice black levels and color reproduction.
Sound: Mostly dialogue driven at the start of the film, but the sound of weapons fire both human and prawn in the third act comes through nicely via a DTS HD 5.1 mix.
So, District 9 is a sci-fi film for you if you want to go beyond Alien vs. Predator, with equally good effects and a much more human story to it.
Video: 5 out of 5
Sound: 5 out of 5
Story: 5 out of 5
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