Review: "DISTRICT 9"

It's rare for the summer movie season to ever get deep, be it emotionally, philosophically, or intellectually. Usually, the cinematic fare of the season amounts to escapist popcorn movies. Besides, the thematic material belongs in those arthouse drama films that are released just in time for awards season, right? Neill Blomkamp wouldn't agree with you.

A South African-born director, the 29-year-old Blomkamp first turned heads in 2007 when he directed live action short films meant to promote the upcoming "Halo 3" video game. His gritty, in-your-face, cinema verite style impressed many in the film industry, especially one Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson. After a Jackson-produced and Blomkamp-directed feature-length "Halo" film fell through, the new partners decided instead to adapt a short film Blomkamp created in 2005, entitled "Alive in Joburg". What followed was a film that had the appearance of an intense sci-fi action flick, ut underneath, it was something much more.

Set in modern day Johannesburg, South Africa, the story (presented as a pseudo-documentary) revolves around arthropod-like aliens (derogatorily called "prawns") whose mothership malfunctioned over the city twenty years earlier. As a result, the prawns were forced by the private military contractor known as Multinational United (MNU) to move into slums, separated from humans who fear and despise them. All of which serves as a highly effective metaphor for the real-life horrors of apartheid in South Africa, as well as the vicious xenophobia that blacks endure in that region.

The movie also does a fine job turning the whole "alien invasion" action movie gimmick on its head. At first glance, these prawns seem like dirty, vicious, animalistic scavengers, but as the story progresses, these creatures turn out to be more human than the humans who persecute them.

One such human is MNU field operative Wikus van de Merwe, fabulously portrayed by Blomkamp collaborator and first-time actor Sharlto Copley. Ordered to serve prawns their eviction notices as a means for MNU to further segregate the aliens from their human counterparts, the overeager van de Merwe is accidentally exposed to an alien liquid. Unfazed at first, van de Merwe begins to experience intense physical changes in his body and genetic code, slowly but surely transforming into a prawn himself. Seen by MNU as a means to mass-produce his hybrid DNA to access the prawns' weaponry, van de Merwe is experimented on until finally escaping.

He eventually hides out in the home of a prawn known as Christopher Johnson (voiced and motion-capture-performed by Jason Cope), who reveals that the liquid that Wikus was exposed is needed to restart the mothership. Being told that he could be cured of his infection onboard the mothership, Wikus and Christopher forge an unlikely partnership to retrieve the liquid and escape.

Themes and allegories aside, the major asset at play is Copley's performance. His Wikus starting out as an everyday guy with a loving wife and a great job, we feel his panic, dread, and fear as he begins to transform into the very thing that he's helped hunt down and segregate. The portrayal of the prawns, notably the Christopher character, is outstanding to behold. It's rare to see such emotion and depth in a CGI character (although it shouldn't be any surprise, considering that the visual effects were handled by WETA, the giant behind "Lord of the Rings" and its Gollum character), and it proves that you don't need an alien to be all cute and snuggly like E.T. to be sympathetic.

And speaking of which, the visual effects and technical work are absolutely terrific, made all the more astounding since the film was produced for a mere $35 million (despite looking and sounding like it was financed with QUADRUPLE that amount). The fake-documentary, guerilla-filmmaking style adds to the film's authenticity and intensity.

Though implementing an allegory to real-life atrocities, "District 9" never becomes preachy, and at the same time, there's enough human-scale drama and pathos to keep the film from being all about the action. Thought-provoking, emotional, intense, and highly entertaining, "District 9" is sure to kick off the promising career of a fresh, young, and innovative talent.

LETTER GRADE: "A-"

Will "Inglourious Basterds" revitalize America's interest in European cinema?

Two weeks ago, auteur filmmaker Quentin Tarantino released his seventh movie, the World War II action film "Inglourious Basterds", to widespread critical acclaim (currently holding a score of 88% on the film critic aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes) and a better-than-expected opening weekend domestic box office take of $37 million (as of this writing, it's currently at $76 million, and $140 million worldwide).

At first glance, it shouldn't be too surprising that "Basterds" did so well. After all, Tarantino is a cult filmmaker with a strong fan and critic following, and it stars none other than Brad Pitt, easily the biggest star in Hollywood today. And the opening weekend's box office take wasn't too surprising either. Just look at those pre-release trailers and commercials! To the untrained eye, "Inglourious Basterds" was going to be two hours of slam-bang, explosive action with Brad Pitt and his Jewish team of Nazi-killers laying the Semitic Smackdown on those goose-stepping Hitler-huggers ("G.I. Jew", perhaps?).

But when the film was actually released, the millions of casual moviegoers were surprised to find that the film was, in fact, very... talky. Sure, QT's well known for his amazingly intricate dialogue, but here he set the bar even higher, with some scenes lasting well over ten minutes and containing nothing but talk, talk, talk. And the movie was two and a half hours long! With movie references that probably only 10% of the post-adolescent audience were able to pick up! Curses!

Even more, despite his top billing, Brad Pitt and his titular Basterds don't even appear in most of the movie! Drat!

Surely, those young'un's must've been enraged at the fact that Tarantino tricked them with his wordy, intellectual film!

Or were they?

The following weekend, two surefire hits were making their debuts, both of them grisly horror films that the 18-24 demographic gobbles up like unprescribed Percocet: "The Final Destination" (the fourth in a similarly-titled series) and Rob Zombie's "Halloween II". Usually, any ultra-hyped film that scores in its opening weekend but gains incredibly poor word-of-mouth tends to plummet in its second-weekend box office gross (a good example was 2003's superhero flop "Hulk", which bowed at the No. 1 spot with $62 million, but fell a massive 70% the next week). So, naturally, "Basterds" opening take was an undeserved fluke... right?

Actually, that's wrong. In a surprising turn of events, "Basterds" took only a 49% dive with $19 million (impressive for a movie taking on two competing horror debuts), managing to hold the No. 2 spot over "Halloween", and not only did the majority of film critics love the movie, but according to the Rotten Tomatoes community page, 88% of moviegoers enjoyed it as well.

So let's recap: instead of being a quick, brainless, start-to-finish action fest, "Inglourious Basterds" is a nearly-three-hour, talk-heavy, New Wave-style, homage-ridden movie mixtape with not as much Brad Pitt as we thought there'd be. And even then, the audiences loved it.

So what do we take from this? Simply put, this was a classic case of brilliant marketing strategy on the part of Tarantino and the Weinstein Company.

It's obvious that American filmgoers are easily attracted to explosions and shiny things. After all, why else would a film like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" have made so much money? Plot? Bullshit, they don't want that!

And yet, Tarantino capitalized on this attraction. From the teaser trailer that debuted in February 2009 to the eventual television and print marketing campaign, Quentin dressed up his movie as the ultimate, ULTIMATE slambang action flick this side of Michael "I Hate Dignity" Bay. And Mr. Jolie himself, Brad Pitt, adorned every piece of advertising there was, from his rousing Nazi-hunting speech in the teaser to the "Brad Pitt is a Basterd" tagline adorning one of the film's posters.

The trap was set. The shiny, explosive bait was in place. Once the crowds piled into the theaters on August 21st, Quentin unleashed an essentially European movie on a very American audience. And you know what? They liked it. In fact, many of them LOVED it.

What does that say about the American moviegoing public? After all, European New Wave and Spaghetti Western films by directors like Jean-Luc Godard and Sergio Leone enjoyed a Stateside popularity mostly during the late '50s, '60s and early '70s.

And though some may argue that "Basterds" enjoyed its success because of Tarantino's cult popularity (which most definitely played a factor), a couple of his earlier films that were almost or just as talky ("Jackie Brown" and "Death Proof" come to mind) performed very poorly at the box office.

So is the huge popularity of "Basterds" a sign that American taste in movies is evolving once again? Is the general public beginning to once again respect films that draw on a style better known on the other side of the pond?

Perhaps, if other films emulate the genius marketing Tarantino displayed, cinematic diversity will become as prevalent as it was forty years ago.