It’s not unusual to find myself completely removed from the mainstream, so discovering that I loathed nearly every second of District 9 didn’t comes as a shock. My last experience with feeling overwhelming alienation was The Dark Knight, a movie that literally bored me too sleep. One may suspect that I hate science-fiction and action movies, but that isn’t the case. I adore the genre, it’s just that I like to see it done well.

What do I consider excellent science fiction movies?

2001: A Space Odyssey

Alien

Aliens

Primer

Timecrimes

The Quiet Earth

Brazil

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Soylent Green

Blade Runner

The Road Warrior

The Terminator

Moon

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Planet of the Apes

E.T.

All of these movies have one thing in common: originality. Some have huge budgets while others, like Primer, were made for $2,000.

So when I see District 9 receive quotes such as this…

“No true fan of science fiction — or, for that matter, cinema — can help but thrill to the action, high stakes and suspense built around a very original chase movie.” – Hollywood Reporter

…I have to wonder if I saw the same movie as everyone else. I’ve read thousands of science-fiction books, from Asimov to Gene Wolfe, Robert Silverberg to Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Clarke to Mike Resnick and everyone in-between. I also happen to be a cinemaphile, adoring the work of Akira Kurasawa, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Werner Herzog, Sam Peckinpah, Scorsese and Hitchcock.

But, according to the Hollywood Reporter and countless critics, I neither like science-fiction or cinema.

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News to me.

District 9 is being held aloft like the second coming of science fiction. I’ve lost track of the amount of times I’ve heard or read the following statement: District 9 is the best science-fiction movie of the past 20 years. All I can say in defense is, “Oh, so you haven’t seen Moon, huh?” District 9 isn’t even the best science-fiction of the past four months.

So what exaclty are my problems with District 9?

Inconsistent Documentary Aesthetic

Neil Blomkamp, rookie director of District 9, makes a concerted effort to portray his world through the documentary lens of a remote film crew. Unfortunately, Mr. Blomkamp abandons this aesthetic when he can’t figure out how to depict scenes with a doc-crew present. This tells me one thing: Neil Blomkamp and co-writer Terri Tatchell were more interested in style over substance and when faced with a challenging scene to film under a documentary aesthetic, they take the easy way out and bail.

If you want to see how to do a documentary style consistently, meeting the challenges head-on, then I recommend you watch the brutal French serial-killer movie Man Bites Dog. Hell, even though I thought The Blair Witch Project sucked, I give the director credit for sticking with the documentary aesthetic and discovering ways around challenging situations.

If you want to see how to do action under the guise of a documentary, then I highly recommend the little-seen Vietnam film 84 Charlie MoPic. Neil should have watched it before he filmed District 9.

Degenerates Into Chase/Action Movie

What starts as an interesting premise soon devolves into a typical chase movie packed with cliche’s. You have the stereotypical nemesis, a bald, grimacing soldier working for MNU who, like 99% of all villains before him, can’t shoot his target even though he’s carrying an automatic weapon. Then you have the Mech scene that just goes on an on as if you’ve never seen Robocop or Transformers, complete with the typical outcome of the mech being brought too its knees by relentless firepower. When it comes to alien technology, Neil is obviously a videogamer, as each armament effect is stolen directly from Quake, Unreal Tournament and Halo, including concussion and lightning guns.

Cringe-Inducing Cell-Phone Conversations

It’s bad enough that District 9 depicts the main character engaged in a cell-phone conversation with his wife that is so sappy and ridiculous in light of his mutating into an alien life form, but Neil had to punish me with two similar scenes that account for the total emotional resonance of the film. Sorry, but I just can’t buy a conversation that basically says, “Hey, my arm is now alien, but don’t worry. I’m going to the mothership and everything will be okay. You still want to be with me? Great, I want to be with you too!”

Neil Blomkamp said in a recent interview that approximately 90% of District 9 has improvised dialog. After watching these two unbelievably stupid sequences, I have no reason to doubt his claim.

No New Ideas

District 9 has received a lot of acclaim for being original. If being original is swiping one idea after another and shoe-horning them into a single film, then okay, I guess it succeeds. But when I’m watching a movie the last film I want to be reminded of is Laserblast, a cheesy movie made in 1978 that told the story of a young man who finds a laser gun left behind by aliens, uses the gun and becomes a maniac as he mutates. Then we have The Fly reference as our main character in District 9 begins changing into a monster, followed by E.T. references with cat food replacing Reese’s Pieces as the “charming” gimmick, finishing it off with more E.T. homages such as science wanting the alien while our main character tries to escort it too the mother ship. I fully expected the film to end with a bike-ride across the face of a full moon.

Laserblast Trailer:

Preposterous Conceits

District 9 would have you believe that a mammoth alien craft comes to a halt over South Africa, presumably because of a technical malfunction. So far, I’m on board. In order to deal with the ship and the aliens they find inside, a corporation is created called MNU that will handle security, sequestration and, presumably, reverse-engineering of alien technology.

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My logic sensors tell me this would be a hardcore military event led by the superpowers, not a situation run by a half-assed company. The very idea that we would create nothing more than a shanty-town with plywood walls just doesn’t ring true. A ton of critics point to the supposedly deep social commentary on Apartheid and the nature of the human species, but even I am not so cynical as to think this is how things would be handled. If you can’t buy this setup, then the entire movies falls apart.

Within the first 15 minutes, District 9 lost me completely. It would have me believe that our main character is going door-to-door, visiting aliens so he can have them sign consent forms so they can be moved to a new location. Let me repeat that: we’re having aliens sign forms. Now, this dopey idea only works within the context of social satire. For example, if Stanley Kubrick had filmed this, it would be presented in a way that was clearly satire, much like he did in Dr. Strangelove. Neil lacks the skill to deliver satire, so we’re left in this murky middle-ground, unclear if he’s serious or kidding. Either way, it fails.

Then our intrepid hero, who really has no redeeming values or traits and who wants nothing more than to just survive, narrates for a documentary crew how fascinating and interesting it is that when the alien baby pods are incinerated, it makes a sound like corn popping.

Not long after that, our hero inadvertently sprays himself with an alien goo and the documentary crew filming this doesn’t care in the least. Nor do they care when our hero is clearly showing signs of physical distress, bleeding black goo from his nose. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a shock because our hero returns home to a surprise birthday party looking like total hell, hands shaking, he’s bleeding, he looks like a sleep-deprived zombie, but no one at the party seems to give a damn. No need for alarm, people, he only works with aliens everyday. Life is normal.

Do I even need to cover how idiotic it is that alien weapons and technology have filled the Nigerian black market and the authorities don’t seem to give a flying fuck? Ohh, that empty Mech suit there? Just a trinket we picked up from the mothership.

At every turn, District 9 presented me with one moronic scene after another. It’s one of those movies that doesn’t bother to explain anything thanks to one obvious reason: the creators have no idea. The more questions you ask yourself, the more ridiculous the movie becomes. How is the mother ship still floating in air 20 years after coming to a stop? Don’t ask. Why didn’t the aliens use the miracle goo from their technology to leave the planet when they were still aboard the ship? Don’t ask. How come humans can understand the alien language? Don’t ask. How come we didn’t detect a huge command module buried 10′ underground, despite television footage of it separating from the mothership? Don’t ask. This alien fuel-goo also mutates people into aliens? Don’t ask.

District 9 is smart science-fiction? My god. If this movie is a sign of things to come, then the bar has truly sunk to a new low.

 On the Upside

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. I commend Neil for attaining a great visual flair with a limited $30-million budget. The CGI of the aliens is about as good as it currently gets, though the acclaim here should go to WETA, the effects house responsible. Unfortunately, that is about all I can praise. Everything Neil was responsible for sucks. Much like Michael Bay, it comes down to style over substance, which isn’t surprising as both Michael Bay and Neil Blomkamp were born in the trough of television commercials.

I’ll hold out hope Neil can mature as an artist and leave his videogame plotting behind. In the end, District 9 is nothing more than an extended cut-scene that feels lifted from Halo, lacks emotional resonance, inherent logic or a reason for being.

If you want smart science-fiction, then do yourself a favor and watch Moon.

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