District 9 [Blu-ray]

I saw the trailer for this film and automatically my brain tells me it's another bog standard Hollywood tuned Sci-Fi which will undoubtedly have the usual storyline: Alien invades, humans die, humans overcome and conquer aliens, happy ever after.With this in my mind, I left it. The other week a mate was going through some of his all time greats in sci-fi, this popped up. I challenged his opinion, he told me to watch it so I did.PLOT **(some very mild spoilers)**: March 1982, an alien craft comes to Earth and stops over Johannesburg after losing a 'control module' which falls from the ship. After months of no activity, humans investigate the craft and manage to get on-board to find a large group of malnourished aliens. They are removed from the craft and given food and shelter but are also given an area to live (district 9).Human and Alien relations soon fall apart but instead of the Aliens attacking or revolting as they would in a conventional film of this type, we humans impose the unfair changes.MNU (the company hired to deal with Alien relations) decides to shift the Aliens further from Johannesburg to a new area named district 10 which is pretty much a concentration camp.Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), in charge of the operation to shift the prawns (derogatory name given to the aliens) begins by serving eviction notices to the prawns in D9 when he comes across an alien called Christopher Johnson (Jason Cope). In Christopher's shack, there is a small container which Wikus finds. Upon inspection, the container squirts an unknown substance on Wikus' face which leads to him becoming ill. After a medical examination, it becomes apparent that Wikus is mutating into a prawn.Alien weapons were also found with the prawns, but could not be used as they had to be used by someone with prawn DNA. Now Wikus is mutating into a prawn, he can use their weapons and suddenly, he becomes very valuable so MNU decide to vivisect his organs for bio-weaponry research. Wikus escapes and locates Christopher in D9 who tells him he can cure Wikus' condition on the mothership, but needs the fluid in the container (now in MNU headquarters) to power the control module so it could return to the mothership and ultimately leave planet Earth to return home.The pair then set on a mission to get back the fluid so Wikus can be cured and Christopher and his son can return home. At MNU headquarters, Christopher discovers that humans have been conducting genetic research on prawns much to his disgust and changes the deal he has with Wikus to allow for a little twist at the end of the film.OPINION: Director Neill Blomkamp has done brilliantly with this alternative take on a Sci-Fi thriller. Despite the rather dodgy South African accent, Johannesburg was an ideal setting for the film bringing light to current issues such as social segregation and racism in general. He manages to pull of a nice little twist at the end of the film and the sub plot involving Wikus and his misses is a one which pulls at the heart strings. The acting from the relatively unknown cast was superb particularly the part of Koobus Venter (David James), who shows us henchmen are not always wooden fodder. Being super critical, it should have maybe been a bit longer but there are plans for prequels/sequels so we'll wait and see. Unlike 'The Day The World Stood Still' or 'War of The Worlds', aliens play victims here, a classy film this truly is shot in documetary style (which works superbly) and yes, this is now one of my all time greats.Running time: 112 mins (aprox.)My rating: 8.2/10 (must see, sci-fi fan or not)Genre: Sci-Fi thriller, Alternative Sci-FiThanks for reading :)

Science fiction can be a very powerful medium when done right, because it can create situations that are analogies for present day situations.So here's a movie that takes south african apartheid to it's logical extreme. That may be gone from the country now but prejudice, worldwide, certainly isn't.An alien ship comes to a halt over johannesburg. But it's not full of wonderful technology. It's dirty and grimy and the aliens on there look like giant prawns and they don't know much about how it works.Thus they end up getting confined to a slum district in the centre of the city and treated like third class citizens.Flash forward several years since arrival and they're about to be moved to a new district. Wikus van der merwe, employee of the company that deals with the aliens, is in charge of the relocation. A man who got the plum job by virtue of having married the boss's daughter - for love - he's well meaning but a little out of his depth.In the meantime one of the aliens has it's own plans.And when Wikus is contaminated by a substance that starts to turn him into an alien, he a fight on to survive and stay human. And he and an alien will discover they have more in commmon that they thought...Presented in a documentary style at first that fills you in on all you need to know about the back story, this approach does then take a back seat when the wikus story gets going. Wikus is played by actor Sharlto Copley. In his big feature film debut. And none of his lines were scripted. He improvised the whole thing. In doing this he makes wikus a thoroughly believable character whom you can root for. You can imagine that if this was a british film ricky gervais would have played him and made it rather comedic. But that's not the case here.Visually imaginative, thrilling, thought provoking and with great acting at it's core, this is excellent movie making and well worth seeing.The dvd is a single disc edition.Language tracks: EnglishSubtitles; English hindiIt begins with an anti piracy trailer [not the old 'you wouldn't..' one. thankfully] and a generic one for blu ray but you can skip past these by using the next button. You then get a screen that offers either a human or alien icon. Which you choose seems to have little effect save what the next screen looks like.Extras:The blu ray trailer. Again.A director's commentary.Twenty two minutes of deleted scenes. All quite short these can be watched in a row or one at a time. The special effects in these aren't finished so you'll see how they did the aliens.A thirty two minute long making of documentary that can be watched all at one or in three shorters sections. It's very good for what it is.A pretty decent dvd for a superb movie.