Blink and you'll miss it.Originally Posted by Elly
I saw this and Ponyo on the same day. Two pretty good movies, though I wasn't blown away by either of them.
I was really digging the South African accents though, reminded me of an old friend I had.
I thought it was just ok. Not worth the hype I've been seeing. One thing that bugged me was that I didn't like the main character. He was a douche but not in the way that he's also cool sometimes. The main alien and his kid were probably the only characters I liked.
I did like the documentary feel to it. It was different, a different take on alien visitors, which was nice to see. But that resulted in it not having a true resolution to the plot, which I like to have in my movies.
It's not something I would recommend everyone go see but it was a good watch.
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I thought it was fantastic. Loved the documentary feel of the film and I loved how the film guided you through this process where at first you feel some repulsion toward the aliens (they really do look like prawns) and then slowly but surely you feel more and more for the aliens until the very end when you sorta hope that they come back and just slaughter humanity.
I thought it was brave of them to attempt to make such disgusting looking creatures sympathetic. These weren't cute cuddly aliens, and they weren't ferocious "BOW DOWN TO US" aliens either. They were simply different in strange and unappealing ways.
I also thought the actor who played Wikus was tremendous. Wow. He pulled off both geeky bureaucrat and desperate madman incredibly well. And seeing the transition between the two personas was probably my favorite thing about the film. I felt so gutted for him. And I hated him. Pitied him. Rooted him on. Wanted to kick him in the balls. Just a really fascinating portrayal.
I like that the ending was resolved but unresolved. I think it would have been too much for the film to have gone on any longer than it did. It wasn't the kind of film where I felt an epilogue was appropriate.
it's also a good idea to understand that this movie is clearly a message on racisim and discrimination, where we the humans force the aliens to live in camps while we try to steal their technology... anyway i thaught the alien with a son was the main character moreso than the human that got infected, though the human was a good plot device to nail the point home...
It's what?! That's crazy.
It was good. I liked the fact that the action was character driven, although the symbolism was pretty heavy-handed at times.
I don't think it was symbolism so much as an accurate depiction of how humanity really would react if the situation in the film happened in real life. There were lots of parts of the film that reminded me of various racial conflicts throughout history (the exploitation, the segregation, the careless slaughtering, etc) but that makes perfect sense. It's happened before, why shouldn't it happen again with aliens?
Because aliens are awesome.
The the choice of city was as subtle as a sledgehammer.
And no doubt that there are people really this vile, but there are no important human characters completely on the aliens' side. Humans can cause cruelty and misery but also are capable of acts of great compassion and caring. It's the paradoxical nature that both are 'human nature'.
I missed that sense that humans have redeeming qualities. Even when the protagonist acts heroically it's because he was driven by desperation more than altruism. Yes, he grows beyond some of his prejudices, but he acts mainly in self-interest, until the end at least.
One thing I have to say about the second half of the film: Bloodsplosion.
I believe there were a couple minor mentions about groups of people that were "on the alien's side" but giving them a larger part in the movie would've lessened what the movie was actually about.
unverified quote but probably likelyAlso, when you see those shots of South Africans complaining about the aliens, where they were all
just saying,"I wish they would leave." and "I don't care where they go as long as it's not here."
The director actually posed as a documentary crew and was asking them what they thought about refugees and immigrants from the neighboring country of Zimbabwe.
Some of the local South Africans were actually torching some of the Zimbabweans homes during filming.
IMDB Trivia
Star Sharlto Copley had not acted before and had no intention of pursuing an acting career. He stumbled into the leading role as Neill Blomkamp placed him on-camera during the short film.
I felt pretty sick at the part (SPOILER)when they test him using the weapons and that hardly ever happens, so that alone makes this movie a success to me.
I kind of have mixed feelings about D9. On one hand, I felt it was fairly entertaining (although I wouldn't say I was gripped); on the other, I thought it was disappointing based on the potential it had.
I guess it had a lot to do with the characterisation, or lack thereof. Van de Merwe was pretty much unlikeable until the end, but by that point the film had descended into cliche and I was no longer that interested in the ending. The other characters were very poorly drawn - usually they amounted to lip-snarling bad guys with no other dimension. After just seeing The Hurt Locker, with its array of flawed heroes, it seemed amateurish.
I wasn't too keen on the faux-documentary style either. I think to go down that route, it either has to be all documentary or all properly filmed. A mixture doesn't really work.
Finally, and probably my biggest disappointment, was the allegory. The best Sci-Fi is usually allegorical, but this didn't seem fully realised in the film. I thought it had a lot of potential to use its sci-fi trappings to say something about the human condition; instead it had a guy in a robot suit shooting things.
There are a lot of positives - I'd never say it was a bad film - but I thought I'd focus on the problems I have with it. Overall: decent, but definitely over-rated.
I just saw this. I dunno how I feel about it all. I didn't enjoy watching it at all. Not that it was a bad movie, because it was decent; I just really did not enjoy the experience of watching it. It's a weird opinion I have here, and I don't really know how to accurately put it into words. xD
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