I pretty much had to drag my wife to the cinema for this one after reading rave reviews of it on QT3. Peter Jackson’s involvement in the film, after what he gave us in the King Kong remake, was not a glowing endorsement to us. Luckily for me, both of us enjoyed it thoroughly and I recommend it highly to anyone who enjoys action films that don’t try to treat their audience as if they were 5 year-olds. The rest of this post will be chockful of spoilers so if you haven’t watched it yet, please go away and come back later.
District 9 opens using a mockumentary format that combined with its South African setting, draws us into a realistic depiction of a world in which a gigantic alien ship has mysteriously appeared overnight. However, the aliens the ship disgorges turn out to be neither enlightened beings here to lead humanity to a brighter future nor nefarious conquerors bent on world domination. Instead they are nothing more than starving and desperate refugees. Not since Alien Nation has a major film treated the issue of first contact with extraterrestrials in as mature and serious a manner.