"District 9", premiered this week in the Portuguese rooms, is probably the best action movie of the year, and slap a white glove to the major American studio blockbusters and their 200 million dollars that failed at the box office as "Transformers 2 "or" GI Joe ". The film by Neill Blomkamp, produced by Peter Jackson, is a reformulation of intelligent science fiction film and Action, tempered with a strong political, social and historical approach that informed the imagination of the viewer and gives you the bonus of pure entertainment.
The film begins 18 years after an alien ship has stopped on Johannesburg, South Africa, when a television crew filming a documentary about the whole process of co-existence (?) Between humans and shrimp (nickname given to humans because of their appearance). Unable to return to his planet, the aliens are placed in a refugee camp created for this purpose, the District 9, where they can not leave and where they are heavily guarded by government forces. With population growth and marginalization, the field quickly becomes a slum threatening the peace of the human population nearby. The weapons company MNU - Multi-National United is hired to change the alien population to a new field, 200 kilometers from Johannesburg. Wikus van der Merwe, son-in of the CEO is responsible for leading the process, during the which is exposed to a chemical alien and strange, to save yourself, you must seek help in two new friends shrimp. But the company wants to capture Wicus, study it and take ownership of their new skills. All that the Aliens want is to return home.
Socially and politically, the film shows a new apartheid, a relapse of the same dominant human vices, with new victims, but also negative results. Here, the slum and the marginalization of its occupants, and metaphor (or parallel with this reality belonging to the imagination of viewers), is the driving motor of the narrative. The Humanization of extra-terrestrial in their habits and motivations, gives the narrative counterpoint to our anti-hero, pathetic and selfish, who only seeks the salvation of those who mistreated her. Between the lines, the film is a political and social theory based on the history of the twentieth century but transferring it to the timeliness and scientific speculation.
In practice it is an action movie and an amazing unpretentious and refreshing entertainment. Peter Jackson has shown that, with far less budget, if they can make movies as great as those of Hollywood, and placed at the disposal of Blomkamp his production company. In the implementation, Blomkamp hits in just about everything. The look of the film (documentary, because we are supposed to see this work as a journalist), close to the images that we know (through the TV precisely) of the actual events that relate to the narrative. And perhaps the biggest flaw is also there. The beginning of the film is a journalistic narrative so compelling that when it is withdrawn for non-documented events, I felt betrayed by a fiction (in fiction) that although spectacularly well done, does not have the level of involvement and information had reached the first act. And that's when I realized that what we are seeing is fiction and that we should just enjoy and entretermo us, and that all information given to us to process and think it is only incidental and not the aim of the film, I felt a little betrayed. Probably silly I did let myself cheat, but that is another point in favor of Jackson and Blomkamp. And the rest of the film, the action itself, is so intense and well done that compensates for this betrayal.
Sharlto Copley, South African actor who plays the protagonist here Wicus in his first leading role, it is amazing and gives a great lesson in acting, managing to make the transformation of character, an idiot to hero, is extremely convincing. It will certainly be a player that we will hear more. The special effects are, as might be (since they come from the same studios that Jackson did with "The Lord of the Rings") as good and complex that does not seem to exist. Be the creatures, the ship and helicopters hovering over Johannesburg, armed conflict or explosive sequences involving a technologically superior weaponry, everything is done with an accuracy and detail so realistic that, coupled with the documentary effect, do not risk undermining.
In conclusion, "District 9" is one of those cases where the ticket reflects the quality, and in that respect by the public and rigor placed on the project outweigh and are compensated. The fact that an independent film makes it even more worthy of recognition and the names involved (except that here only gave Jackson deserved push) the target of future attention. It is an excellent entertainment, intelligent and provocative that will surely be on many best of 2009 lists.
Rating: 4 / 5
