District 9: The Rare Artistic & Box Office Success

District 9 was a surprise to all of us. There was no major marketing blitz, at least when compared to this summer’s other major blockbusters. All we knew of it was that Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson had something to do with it and that it had an incredible trailer and a fantastic website. One thing in particular caught my attention: it looked unusually smart compared to most summer movie fodder.

Even more separated the film from typical summer fare: a cast that was unrecognizable, a relatively small budget, and virtually unknown director. How will a movie that defies all preconceived notions of what will sell to summer audiences fare in the box office? Pretty darn well, it seems.

In fact, District 9 reminds me a lot of last year’s The Dark Knight. Though it doesn’t quite have the mass appeal of being a Batman movie, it is an intense and thoughtful action movie that is dense enough to warrant several viewings. Just as Dark Knight did, we can expect this little film that could to do fairly well in the next few weeks as word spreads.

These films certainly aren’t attractive because they flatter us. The fascinating thing about this film is that it berates us as a human race. Like Dark Knight, it points out consistently the various ways we as humans fail one another. Typical alien movies, such as Independence Day told us we were better than them, not just because we had the firepower, but because we had the will, the pure hearts, and a united spirit. District 9 makes it obvious just how flawed the human condition is.

Whether they’re evil out of willful ignorance, a desire for power, greed, or unabashed curiosity, every single human being on District 9’s earth is nonetheless evil. There are no villains because every person in the film is the villain. Even when our hero, Wikus begins to have a change of heart, he still carries out relatively despicable acts for the sake of his own comfort and happiness.

But if every human being is the villain, who are we supposed to root for? The aliens. Why? Because they are powerless. Helpless and out of their element, we are meant to sympathized with the meek and lowly. This is an honorable twist on the action movie formula.

So how did the movie succeed in spite of itself? By giving us a picture of ourselves that doesn’t ring false. Wikus learns various lessons throughout the film, but like us he often fails to live them consistently. He never arrives; he merely grows and backslides, matures and falls away. He succeeds because he happened to do the right thing at the right time, but he just as easily could have done the wrong thing, given different circumstances. We can all relate to this.

The film is far from perfect. What begins as a fascinatingly shot documentary-style satire ultimately collapses into a relatively cliche action movie battle in the last 20 minutes, bombarding the viewer with overly graphic violence that often serves to take the viewer out of the movie. The director seems to revel in various people exploding or being decapitated. Ultimately though, District 9 is a brilliantly conceived sci-fi adventure that provides a great balance of popcorn entertainment and food for thought.