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    District 9


    Directed by: Neill Blomkamp

    Starring:

    Sharlto Copley,William Allen Young, Robert Hobbs, Jason Cope, Kenneth Nkosi, Vanessa Haywood, Nathalie Boltt, Sylvaine Strike, John Summer, Nick Blake, Jed Brophy, Louis Minnaar, Vittorio Leonardi, Marian Hooman, Mandla Gaduka, Johan van Schoor, Stella Steenkamp, David James, Tim Gordon, Jonathan Taylor

    Plot:

    Aliens made first contact with Earth twenty-eight years prior to the beginning of the film, after which humanity waited for either a hostile attack or for giant advances in technology, though neither came. Instead, the aliens that arrived were refugees, the last survivors of 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. Patience over the alien situation ran out and control over them was contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company uninterested in the aliens' welfare. MNU stands to receive tremendous profits if they can make the aliens' advanced weaponry work.

    MNU, thus far, has failed in making the alien weaponry work, for activation of the weaponry requires alien DNA. Tension between the aliens and the humans comes to a head when an MNU field operative, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), through playing around with an alien device, contracts a mysterious virus that begins changing his DNA. Wikus was tasked with forcefully evicting the aliens from District 9 to a much more remote enclosure. Backed by a Private Military Corporation, Wikus van der Merwe begins to manipulate the aliens into leaving District 9 when he discovers vast amounts of technology and weapons inside one of the shacks. Upon thoroughly searching the dwelling, Wikus discovers a small, metallic cylinder. Wikus accidentally sprays himself with a strange liquid contained inside the cylinder.

    A rapid transformation begins to occur, and shortly after exposure to the liquid Wikus' left arm mutates into a claw exactly like that of a 'prawn' (a derogatory term humans use to describe the aliens). Wikus is taken into custody and a series of tests and experiments are performed on his revealing he is capable of operating alien technology since he now has alien DNA. By grabbing a pair of surgical scissors, Wikus uses a doctor as a hostage to successfully escape his captors and flee from MNU.

    While on the run from MNU, Wikus is forced to seek refuge in the run down shack of an alien called Christopher Johnson, the same alien attempting to distill fuel from scavenged space ship parts scattered around District 9. Although initially hostile towards Wikus, Christopher eventually agrees to assist him reverse the transformation. Christopher can undo the mutation if he were able to get Wikus inside the mother ship hovering over Johannesburg. Ironically, to do so requires the contents of the alien device Wikus confiscated and accidentally sprayed himself with earlier in the film.

    Wikus manages to steal some alien weaponry and with Christopher's help they launch an assault on MNU and successfully retrieve the fuel sample required to power a shuttle up to the mother ship. Wikus and Christopher return to District 9 and Christopher admits the process involved to cure Wikus could take up to three years to complete. Furious, Wikus knocks Christopher unconscious and powers up the ship himself. The military target Wikus and destroy one of the shuttles engines, causing it to crash land inside District 9. A battle between the military and a local group of thugs begins to rage, both groups wish to control Wikus (the military want to dissect him to gain an understanding of how to use alien technology and the thugs believe if they eat his alien arm they will gain his power). Christopher's son Little CJ gains control of a mechanized battle suit from inside the crashed shuttle and helps free Wikus. Wikus then commandeers the battle suit and defends Christopher as the mother ship uses a tractor beam to lift the shuttle on board.

    As the shuttle docks with the mother ship, Wikus is shot in the back and the suit ejects him after taking critical damage. Wikus drags himself away from the leader of the private military corporation working for MNU, but is unavoidably caught. Just before the trigger is pulled, four aliens burst out of the surrounding slums and dismember Wikus' attacker.

    The film concludes with a series of interviews and news broadcasts, showing the humans view on the events that unfolded. An interview with Wikus' wife reveals a small metal rose was left on her doorstep (one of Wikus' trademarks, he strongly believed a gift is worth more if it was made personally). She concludes it couldn't possibly be Wikus, no one has heard from him since he was last seen crawling from the mangled battle suit. An alien is then seen standing in a junk yard inside District 9 fashioning a small metal rose out of scrap metal, implying that Wikus is alive and his transformation from human to alien is complete.

    Watch Trailer here>>


    1 comments:

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