Distrcit 9 Review (Oblivious Opinion)

I went and saw this last week with Paul, but it took me this long to get around to writing a review. This was not done out of procrastination, but rather, I felt like I needed to digest it for a while so that my review was more than just me repeating "FUCKING AWESOME" over and over and over.

I was not excited to watch this movie. There were a lot of things going for it, months before it was even set to release. The CGI looked good in the previews, it was shot as a documentary. And, Peter Jackson apparently loved the idea of it so much that he produced it even after his deal to make the Halo movie with Neill Blomkamp fell apart. I saw the trailer before The Dark Knight, and was floored. However, upon reading into the details of the movie, I started to lose hope. The same reasons that everyone was going batshit for it were the reasons that I was not.

The faux-documentary has been done to death, and I really felt like enough was enough. There was no way this film was going to compete in my mind with Cloverfield, so why was it trying? The CGI did look cool, but come on. Do we have to have completely immersive CGI in every film in order for it to be validated? What ever happened to stunning costume work? And Peter Jackson? Great.

Those who have known me long enough know that I've always been a huge fan of Tolkien. So, it would stand to reason that I'd not only love the movies, but as a result, love Jackson. However, that's completely not the case. I may be the only fanboy out there that didn't love the Rings trilogy, but it just didn't do it for me. They were too long, and I found myself getting bored early on in the process, which left me questioning my status as fanboy.

This lead me to start thinking more and more about my actual love of Tolkien. As I thought about it, I thought that I MUST love Tolkien, in that I was always into all things fantasy, be it Tolkien, or Dungeons and Dragons, or Elder Scrolls. But, then I started thinking deeper into it, and I realized that Tolkien and fantasy as a whole were just stepping stones into my true nerd calling: CyberPunk.

The Lord of the Rings was great; Ender's Game was better. Dungeons and Dragons was great; Battletech and Shadowrun were both better. Oblivion was great; Fallout 3 was better. Willow was great; Bladerunner was better.

So, fine. I just came to grips with it. I'm a fantasy nerd no longer. I am a Sci/Fi nerd. And, I'm proud of it. Gone were the days of leveling up a Half-Orc Barbarian to Legendary Status. Gone were the days of reading about Drizzdt Do Urden, Gone were the days of The Simulacrum. Here to stay were giant robots, cyborg love affairs, and distant futures ruled by shadowy corporations.

So, it's Jackson with whom I attribute my loss of love for a genre that helped define who I am. And now, after having seen this film, I feel at one with the nerd culture as a whole as I lovingly welcome him back into my warm embrace.

This film took the ideals behind good science fiction and made them all wonderful. The documentary feel has been done to death, but never like this. The closest comparison on this aspect would be to Cloverfield, which I loved but which had nothing on District 9. The thing that made the documentary feel so powerful was the seamless use of CGI within the format. The overexposure and grainy security cameras all unapologetically blasted you with the perfectly created alien race. There was no warning, and unlike Cloverfield, they were not hidden from view, and didn't wait half way through the film to emerge. From the outset, you are rocked not so much by the aliens as by the entire culture of the aliens and their intermittance with the human race.

The plot, while having a couple of major sized holes, is still wonderfully written. It really kept me not only wondering what was next, but hoping it would end well throughout the entire film. The performance of Sharlto Copley was outstanding. His transformation from doofus to sacrificial hero was smooth and believable, not to mention heartbreaking. And, just to round it all out, they threw in a fucking BattleMech armored fight scene.

This movie was done so lovingly and so well, it has made me want to go back and re-watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy. If Peter Jackson was this loving to the genre I know that I now love, couldn't it be true that he was just as loving to the one that I let go? I guess it's time to give it another chance.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSgLOvH_MMk]