District 9

Hearing all the rave reviews that “District 9” was getting (although I haven’t read any myself), I was slightly surprised when I didn’t think as highly of the movie than I had heard. Sure, the movie was amazingly entertaining with lots of awesome alien weapons, but where it lacked for me was the plot. I felt that it could have definitely been developed more, especially Wikus’ relationship with his wife. One other downside, mainly for the younger kids who see this, is the pervasive language - they aren’t kidding when they say that under the rating, this movie is laced with profanity. Mainly F-bombs, but a few other swear words snuck in there. This said the movie still had major upsides. With only a $30 million production budget, the movie had some of the best special effects and CG that I have ever seen. Teaming up with Weta, who Peter Jackson has seemed to favor (working with them on “Lord of the Rings”, “King Kong” and the upcoming two “Hobbit” movies). The weapons - which were almost Halo reminiscent (some of which could possibly have been used for the movie “Halo” before it was shut down) - and the aliens - which were the best CG I’ve ever seen in a movie, were both prime examples of the amazing special effects. I found myself caring about the CG-ed alien, Christopher, in which the aliens became actors themselves.

Overall, I think this movie is great, just not as fantastic as everyone makes it out to be. I still would recommend this movie to anyone who likes science fiction or action movies. But even if you’re not into these, I’d still recommend this movie if nothing more than to just see how amazing the CG aliens work with the movie. This movie is worth going to in theaters and worth your money.

Overall Rating: 8.5 out of 10