I finally got to see two movies I've been anticipating since we did our Summer Movie Preview podcasts way back in May, District 9 & The Hurt Locker. While both have gotten almost nothing but praise, one clearly outshined the other. (Spoiler-free)
When compared to District 9, The Hurt Locker comes off as a one-trick pony. The movie follows three soldiers in an elite bomb disarmament unit in Baghdad and does a tremendous job of putting you smack into the middle of the action and the white-knuckle anticipation of action that these sodliers actually face every day. What it lacks though, is character development. Sure a selling point of the movie has been that since the cast is mainly unknowns, you never know who is going to get blown up next, but 30 minutes in, that's just not true, and besides, trying to guess who will bite it next does not a good film make.
District 9
Watching this movie is like eating a multi-course gourmet meal. It starts off great and gets better and better as the courses go on, as you cherish every damn second of it. District 9 is about aliens whose ship has come to rest above Johannesburg, South Africa. As they have tended to do in Johannesburg, the aliens are sequestered into a slum called District 9 where tension between aliens and humans have reached a boiling point over twenty plus years. A corporation called MNU has been contracted to move the aliens to a new area outside the city and the story picks up with Wikus van der Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley, the bumbling son-in-law of the boss, in charge of the move.
Going in to this, I did my best to not read too much and keep what I knew strictly to what I saw in the teaser trailer months ago. I'm glad I did. Instead of an aliens vs. humans civil war, we are treated to a multi-layered, Apartheid-meets-Kafka, buddy/action political satire, told seamlessly through narrative and documentary styles. Director Neill Blomkamp deserves all the credit in the world for putting out something this amazing and CGI dependent on a 30 million dollar budget. After hearing all the post-Comic-con buzz, I became very worried about it living up to the hype, but District 9 lives up to it and surpasses it, too.
The Hurt Locker
When compared to District 9, The Hurt Locker comes off as a one-trick pony. The movie follows three soldiers in an elite bomb disarmament unit in Baghdad and does a tremendous job of putting you smack into the middle of the action and the white-knuckle anticipation of action that these sodliers actually face every day. What it lacks though, is character development. Sure a selling point of the movie has been that since the cast is mainly unknowns, you never know who is going to get blown up next, but 30 minutes in, that's just not true, and besides, trying to guess who will bite it next does not a good film make.The Hurt Locker feels thin to me because there really isn't much going on aside from it taking you from one situation to the next. It's almost more documentary-like in structure than District 9, without actually looking like hand-held news footage. Only one scene about halfway through really shows the three leads doing anything other than their jobs and getting into their lives back home, which doesn't lead to much sympathy for the characters. The situations are quite intense and you will find yourself gripping your armrest without knowing it several times, for instance, the sniper situation, the car bomb and suicide bomber scenes. Director Kathryn Bigelow makes you believe in these scenarios 100%, but that's really all this movie has going for it. While not bad in any way, it could've been a bit shorter and used a bit more emotion.
District 9: 4&1/2 out of 5 Stars, The Hurt Locker: 3 & 1/2 out of 5 Stars
-Jay
Yeah, District 9 stunned me in a way I wasn't expecting. The more I think about it, the more perfect it becomes. There hasn't beena more condemning treatise on human nature commited to film in years.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I literally enjoyed every minute of it.
ReplyDeleteDistrict 9 was a real damning portrait of human nature. And even more chilling is that everyone can relate to what the MNU were up to. Its happening now and was for the last century.
ReplyDeleteI think the film succeeds on every level by appealing to the people who like the 'big ass splosions' CGI and aliens. But also to the more discerning cinema-goer who will find an intriguing script accompanied by powerhouse acting and most of all the stark portrait of contemporary society.
D9 is easily the best movie I've seen in years. It's what sci-fi should be; I thought about this movie and it's sociological commentary for weeks afterwards.
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