The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Now the opening was very well done. Shot in documentary/News at Six style, it gave a "real" feeling to the events that would kick start the plot of the movie: The not-so-subtle apartheid slant of humans imprisoning aliens in a ghetto (in Johannesburg, South Africa, to hammer home the point). That lasts for about the first 1/4 of the movie while the jittery camerawork remains, and then some simple questions enter your head that aren't answered: No reason is given as to why the aliens showed up to Earth in the first place. There doesn't seem to be a captain or a simple mechanic trying to make the ship work again. And if what I concluded is true: the ship is simply out of gas, wouldn't the aliens, I don't know, try to work with the humans in making some more of this alien gas?

But it's also hard to feel terribly sympathetic to the aliens, known insultingly as "prawns", as they seem to relish and enjoy living in filth. They kill humans, without reason sometimes. And they seem unmotivated to hop on their ship and leave. Which leads to another question: Their huge mothership is hovering above Johannesburg, but after 20 years, what exactly is keeping it up?

So the story revolves around the humans being incapable of keeping the aliens contained peacefully in their ghetto, so they plan to move them to, er, another ghetto (District 10; I'm not sure if there was mention of Districts 1 through 8) outside the city. We follow the exploits of the main character, Wilkus van de Merwe (who is rather likeable) who goes around trying to get the Prawns to sign their own eviction notices to move to the next ghetto. It's not really explained what would happen if no one signed them, but anyway, while searching the slums he finds a canister which (spoilers ahead!) accidentally sprays on his face and makes him partially turn alien. And this same liquid turns out also to be fuel for the hovering mothership (the Bo Jackson of liquids! Wait, is that reference dated?). And I have to tell you, the aliens DO know fuel economy: this canister is only about as a big as a can of Arizona iced tea. But what also doesn't make much sense, is that out of the population of 2.5 million prawns, only three (one is the child of the "main" prawn) seem to bother trying to find this liquid so they can leave Earth. Doesn't anyone miss home?

Add this to what I thought was offensive nonsense of Nigerian gangs wanting to eat alien body parts to obtain their "power" (the power of not being mechanically inclined, I guess) and the whole experience, well, wasn't all the enthralling. I'd take Star Trek over this any day of the week

So again, I must be missing something. Everything I've read about it is positive, and while I don't think this is an outright stinker, District 9 is a film I can live my life without seeing again.