Product Description

Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Nathalie BolttDirectors: Neill Blomkamp

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13 in DVD
• Brand: Blu-ray Action & Adventure
• 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, French, Hindi
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .26 pounds
• Running time: 112 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. Ostracised and friendless, there is only one place left for him to hide: District 9.

Stills from District 9 (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

A review of the Blu-Ray
Apart from the news footage and similar cut-in scenes, the standard picture of "District 9" is one of the best transfers I have seen so far. No apparent colour filtering, no DNR (but no offensive grain or noise), just a pristine picture, spectacular HD quality in a TV screen-filling 1.85:1 aspect ratio. With just a few minutes exception, everything looks pin-sharp with a sense of near three-dimensionality due to such exceptional depth and plasticity. Colours and contrasts are always spot-on. And don't worry, that annoying MNU watermark on footage doesn't stay for long either.

I was a bit surprised by a damning with faint praise comment on here about the sound quality. The 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack is of extremely high quality. Dialogue and effects are very well balanced. LFE are phenomenal and really give a decent active subwoofer the chance to strut its stuff. Surround effects are also very well implemented with a real sense of immersion.

Some people are disappointed by films like "Transformers 1 & 2" which blow your mind in AV terms without satisfying the little grey cells in other ways. Here you can have it all: a reference level BD featuring a smart film neatly poised between drama and action. It starts as a mockumentary with Sharlto Copley looking as though he would be more at home in "The Office" than in his office. But this brilliant actor will drag you into a world that gets progressively more serious, and ends as a powerful meditation on prejudice and segregation, provocatively set in the erstwhile home of apartheid, South Africa.

The acting is on a par with the effects (and as a "Transformers" fan, I will admit that does not apply to Bay's franchise) with no weak links in sight. Anyone who spoils the plot for you deserves evicting from their review, so I won't say anything about the astonishing twists and turns in store for Copley. It is fast-paced once the mockumentary elements recede, very original and incredibly gripping. The ending might not satisfy very traditional viewers who demand a certain level of closure, but who knows? Perhaps there is a "District 10" in the pipeline.

A very, very good film, on an equally good BD. Extras include a trailer of Jacko's "This is it", and behind the scenes/ making -of extras plus deleted scenes.

Brilliant!
In District 9, Alien refugees have landed on Earth in South Africa, when they have been segregated into a slum in Johannesburg. Because this has led to friction with the city's human residents, Multi-National United have been given the task of moving them to District 10, further away from the city. But MNU have their own agenda - performing secret genetic experiments on kidnapped 'prawns', as the aliens are known, hoping to make their DNA-encoded weapons work for humans & make a killing (in both senses of the phrase) by selling them on.

Such a bold premise covers many contemporary political themes, such as Apartheid, the attitude towards war refugees such as the Kurds & Albanians, & the underhand practices of multinationals in Africa. Early on, it seems that director Neill Blomkamp is heading towards tackling these difficult themes but as the film progresses, the documentery elements are gradually phased out & the plot becomes a more traditional Hollywood narrative, albeit one with some quirky new touches.

However, this did not detract from my enjoyment. For one thing, the parallels with real-world events, combined with shakey camerawork & outstanding CGI make it utterly convincing. As such, District 9 is far more satisfying & (ironically) human than dispassionate blockbusters like Independence Day. Leading man Sharlto Copley plays a flawed character but his charismatic performance meant I still warmed to him much more than if he'd been played by some A-list Hollywood actor in a ripped vest, with a love interest on one arm, a machine gun on the other & a comedy sidekick tagging along.

Despite my feeling that the concept behind District 9 had more potential to veer away from mainstream than was used, it was still an enjoyable, touching & charismatic movie which I thoroughly recommend.

Finally a film with a story not just explosions
OK, so there are a few gun fights, explosions and a bit of gore but really this is a story about the underclass and how we'd prefer that they were somewhere else.

A simple story but compelling. The CGI is part of the story, just adding characters rather than the reason for the film (see - Transformers).