Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #287 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-12-28
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Hindi, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 108 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A provocative science fiction drama, District 9 boasts an original story that gets a little lost in blow-'em-up mayhem. Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, District 9 begins as a mock documentary about the imminent eviction of extraterrestrials from a pathetic shantytown (called District 9). The creatures, it turns out, have been on Earth for years, having arrived sickly and starving. Initially received by humans with compassion and care, the aliens are now mired in blighted conditions typical of long-term refugee camps unwanted by a hostile, host society. With the creatures' care contracted out to a for-profit corporation, the shantytown has become a violent slum. The aliens sift through massive piles of junk while their minders secretly research weapons technology that arrived on the visitors' spacecraft. Against this backdrop is a more personal story about a bureaucrat named Wikus (Sharlto Copley) who is accidentally exposed to a DNA-altering substance. As he begins metamorphosing into one of the creatures, Wikus goes on the run from scientists who want to harvest his evolving, new parts and aliens who see him as a threat. When he pairs up with an extraterrestrial secretly planning an escape from Earth, however, what should be a fascinating relationship story becomes a series of firefights and explosions. Nuance is lost to numbing violence, and the more interesting potential of the film is obscured. Yet, for a while District 9 is a powerful movie with a unique tale to tell. Seamless special effects alone are worth seeing: the (often brutal) exchanges between alien and human are breathtaking. --Tom Keogh

Synopsis
Over twenty years ago, aliens made first contact with Earth. Humans waited for the hostile attack, or the giant advances in technology. Neither came. Instead, the aliens were refugees from their home world. The creatures were set up in a makeshift home in South Africa’s District 9 as the world’s nations argued over what to do with them.

Now, patience over the alien situation has run out. Control over the aliens has been contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens’ welfare. MNU will receive tremendous profits if they can make the aliens’ powerful weaponry work. So far, they have failed; activation of the weaponry requires alien DNA.

The tension between the aliens and the humans comes to a head when MNU begins evicting the non-humans from District 9, with MNU field agents responsible for moving them to a new camp. One of the MNU field operatives, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts an alien virus that begins changing his DNA. Wikus quickly becomes the most hunted man in the world, as well as the most valuable – he is the key to unlocking the secrets of alien technology. Ostracized and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9.

Stills from District 9 (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

prawn cocktail
Neill Blomkamps stunning directorial vision tells the story of a stranded race of aliens nicknamed prawns due to their appearance living in a shanty town named District 9. Attempting to relocate them to district 10 is MNU agent Wikus van de merwe brilliantly played by Sharlto Copley.

Abandoning the usual settings of Hollywood sc-fi and placing the film in the harsh slums of South Africa is a masterstroke. Also no celebrity names here, all unfamiliar actors but who still give solid performances. It's dark and moving with a story that is well told and that grips right from the beginning. A story which is almost saying that all humans are selfish driven by greed and vanity. Which is why this movie pulls no punches, hardly anyone comes out of it smelling of roses.

Blomkamp has managed to create aliens that are grotesque in appearance but yet display just enough feeling that made me care for their predicament something that the other humans in the Movie lack. The effects are genuinely good and don't look cheap with imaginative weaponry. No cheesy laser zappers here, just explosive firepower wait until you see what one alien gun does to a human Body.

The last third of the movie involves firefights and brilliant battle scenes with alien weaponry. Rarely in the sci-fi genre has a movie been so deep dealing with so many issues through prejudice, mans inhumanity and cruelness and large corrupt companies. Central to it is the superb performance of Copley and his bond with the alien Christopher. Blomkamp has fused a great story together and created a classic sci-fi flick that I enjoyed immensely.

alien district
This is a film made in the form of a documentary. It centres around a government official, Wikus Van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley - who plays Howling Mad Murdock in the new "A-team" movie).

Twenty years previously a space ship stopped over Johannesburg, South Africa. The alien refugees aboard, who became known as "Prawns", have been forced to live in District 9 ever since. District 9 is basically a shanty town on top of a land fill rubbish dump. Wikus, who is part of Multi-National United (MNU), is sent into the slum area known as District 9. It is Wikus's job to serve eviction notices on the "Prawns" (and seemingly to search for weapons).

The film shows that the "Prawns" are seen as an easy target for anyone with a problem (they are literally the ultimate illegal alien) and the portrayal of the ease with which attitudes of people can fall to simply because the creatures they are dealing with appear so much different to them; the Prawns are seen as a lesser life form that can be hunted down and killed with little or no reason needed and no consequences for the perpetrator.

As Wikus goes round he is accompanied by a documentary film crew and, while showing off for the film crew, he accidentally operates an alien device which sprays a black liquid in his face, infecting him with a substance which starts to change him into the thing he hates - a "Prawn". So, he becomes hunted by his own company (who want his DNA so that they can operate the alien technology), trigger happy militia and local gangs. In a case of poetic justice, he must join up with the creatures he dislikes in order to survive.

The film was being mentioned as an Oscar contender months before it was even released; this may be due to the underlying messages regarding racism and the treatment of the illegal aliens - hot topics in the USA when this film was being made - which was possibly why it was set in South Africa.

It is an interesting film, an interesting concept, a well made production, but I did find it a little on the slow side at times. If the treatment dished out to the "Prawns" makes you cringe then it has probably accomplished what it needs to. After all, it is less a Sci-Fi film and more a socio-political commentary.

Aliens among us
It's rare at the moment to see a science fiction movie that isn't a remake, a cash-in, an adaptation, or a spinoff of another big success.

But "District 9" is not that kind of movie. Instead, the rarest kind of film -- a unique and original idea, handled in an intelligent manner, with no big name actors or flashy special effects. Director Neill Blomkamp instead creates a truly captivating sci-fi movie -- and by inverting the whole alien-invasion trope, Blomkamp also forces his audience to think. Hard.

Almost thirty years ago, an alien ship appeared over South Africa -- but it brought neither global destruction or salvation. When soldiers cut their way in, they found starving refugees who are now nicknamed "prawns."

Currently the aliens live as outcasts in District 9 while nations argue over them, and the company Multi-National United is selected to make their weapons work... which is not possible, because only alien DNA can activate them. Then during forced evictions of District 9, a typically callous MNU field operative named Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) accidently sprays himself with a black alien fluid in a little lab. Unfortunately, it starts turning him into one of the aliens.

Unsurprisingly, the MNU wants the secrets of Wikus' changing body, and the corporation is not terribly picky about how they get it. He manages to escape into the only place where he has a chance of surviving -- the very alien slum that he was trying to empty, District 9. And his only chance of surviving and becoming human again lies with an alien scientist who is trying to reactive the hovering "prawn" mothership.

Segregation. Blatant discrimination (including a racist nickname). Poverty. Shanty towns. Large companies and countries who care nothing for the despised minority population. It's painfully clear what would probably happen if spooky insectile aliens were to land on humanity's doorstep -- and Neill Blomkamp pulls no punches in his allegorical examination of apartheid, alien-style -- with the poor "prawns" as the universal victims. It's a hard, gruesome story with painfully graphic violence (Wikus gleefully bombs alien eggs) but it really needs to be that way.

Blomkamp also presents his story in a unique way -- much of it is filmed like a documentary, though thankfully it has none of the sickmaking shakiness of movies like "Cloverfield" or "The Blair Witch Project." There are plenty of spliced interviews, documentaries and news footage, which are cloaked in a feeling of gritty, dusty realism -- the dark industrial mothership with its slimy interior, the dusty slum, and the poor aliens who basically scavenge through garbage to survive.

But the last quarter of the movie also evolves it into a slam-bang explosion-riddled action flick, without losing its focus -- there are some brilliantly gruesome scenes where the aliens turn against some human attackers, and Wikus even gets to kick butt anime-style in an alien battle-suit. If there's a flaw with this movie, it's the whole idea that humans wouldn't be at all afraid of aliens who are clearly technologically superior to us -- they have a freaking SPACESHIP that's been sitting over Johannesburg for thirty years!

It also has the virtue of the most alien aliens seen in ages -- they move, look, speak (click click!) and think nothing like humans, and they're slimy and kinda creepy looking. They have no grandiose plans or pretty sparkly technology. Yet Blomkamp infuses them with a sense of nobility and strength, and despite their insectile faces he makes you feel what they do after awhile.

It's hard to believe that this is Sharlto Copley's first acting role, because his performance is so strong: Wikus is a pretty despicable human being, who has fun killing aliens and ejecting them from their homes. It takes a physical transformation into an "other" to change his spirit as well. And Blomkamp lets us see the pain of his transition even when we don't like him (including a heartrending phone call to his wife). The supporting actors also provide excellent lesser performances, but Copley rules this one.

"District 9" is a brilliantly original, hard-hitting movie that wraps a timeless human failing in an alien skin. It's one of the best movies of the year thus far, and certainly a classic in the making.