Peter Jackson made an awful lot of pot-boilers before he hit it big with "Lord of the Rings" and became a Producer-Director with a capital ‘P’ and ‘D.’ The New Zealand filmmaker is back as producer of "District 9," a well-done twist on the-aliens-are-here-let’s-kill-‘em-all movie. Yes, there’s a lot of that, a lot of violence and bloody killings and huge explosions, but there are some interesting philosophical approaches by director Neill Blomkamp and writer Terri Tatchell, who worked with him on the screenplay.
We’re in South Africa, where for the last 28 years, a massive space ship has hovered over the city of Johannesburg, not responding to any efforts from below. Most South Africans have left the city. Some of the aliens, who look like giant shrimp, consider cat food a gourmet delicacy and have been dubbed "prawns" by Africans, have left the ship and are living in what looks like a classic camp site for displaced persons, on desert land outside Jo-Berg. Linguistic experts have been unable to make contact, and as the aliens grow in population, both the extortionist criminal element of Nigerians and the South Africans who do not know what to do, are getting restive.
Guarding the aliens has been jobbed out to Multi-National United, and if you see a resemblance to Blackwater, so did I. And speaking of resemblances, when we finally discover what the aliens want, there are overtones of "E.T."
Wikus van der Merwe, overplayed to a hysterical pitch by Sharlto Copley, is the leading MNU peace-keeper, or killer, but he suddenly is splashed by the black liquid that seems to pass for blood in the aliens, and his body begins to change. We get a lot of discussion of DNA about this time, and we get a sympathetic alien, Christopher Johnson, with a voice by Jason Cope and a cute, if funny-looking, child, Little CJ. Johnson is apparently subject to the rule established by Bill Forsyth’s in his great film, "Local Hero," where a rabbit cannot be killed and eaten "because he has a name," a rule later broken in both films, but that’s another story.
The special effects are excellent, and even though the violence is often over the top and the acting is on a level with the recent "Shadowland," there is redeeming social value in "District 9." Sadly, it reflects far too much of human thought and activity in today’s world.
Opens today at multiple theaters.
-Joe