District 9 is finally coming out in Thailand this week. Usually films come out here when they’re released in the US, but there are odd cases such as this one where they release later. We happened to be at Central World on Saturday with a friend visiting from Sydney and saw they had a couple advance screenings of it on that very night so quickly grabbed some tickets for the last session.
The entire film is shot incredibly well. The special effects were seamlessly integrated and had I not known they weren’t using CG for the aliens I probably would have been thoroughly impressed with the animatronics/puppetry. The film serves as a huge fuck you to the film studios that canned the Halo film.
The entire beginning section of the film does a fantastic job of drawing parallels to existing society and the rest devolves into a spectacular series of bodies spontaneously exploding (not that I’m complaining at all). All of the questions you asked in the first 5 minutes of the film will still be with you at the end, along with a few new ones. The hook is made for the possibility of a sequel, but whether or not they’ll ever do a sequel is unknown.
The use of unknown actors has been a fantastic bonus for this and Inglorious Basterds. I’ve come to realise that I prefer watching films with actors I don’t know because I don’t have their previous roles muddying their current characters.
I like the way it’s matter of fact – there are aliens, they are here, it’s old news, accept it. I’m reading a couple of books at the moment dealing the history of, and how to survive, zombie attacks and they are similar – there’s no explanation as to zombies existence, it’s just a given.