District Sembilan

Seeing my previous movie reviews (Dragon Tiger Gate and The Prestige) were epic fails, I've decided to try a hand at it again to at least put my LimKokWing school fees to good use (Film Studies class. Cesar will be proud!). So, I'll give it a try with Peter Jackson's District 9.


With great time at the TV comes great knowledge of advertisements or so says Uncle Ben thus led me to watching District 9's trailer over and over and over again. But still I had no fockin' clue what the heck the movie was about. All I knew was it was about aliens and a place called District 9. I also noted how there was no focus on the cast but rather on the name Peter Jackson (in case you didn't know, he was the director of LOTR trilogy and also nabbed the Best Director Oscar). In other words, instead of selling the Hollywood cast, he was selling his name and reputation as a director, thus leading to GSC selling District 9's tix at RM6, unlike G.I. Joe's RM9 tickets. They probably googled Peter Jackson's filmography and came up with Lord of the Rings and deduced that he was an Orc extra on set and assumed he's some B-grade actor that settled for some Hollywood wannabe alien sci-fi movie. Maybe. Don't get me wrong, I do respect him as a director for casting Orlando Bloom as Legolas and I think his work is amazing. But that's besides the point. I'm supposed to be reviewing the movie.

To be honest, when I saw the trailer I thought I'd watch it if someone invited me but I wouldn't be the invitee, until my dad saw the poster of the alien mothership. He said he HAS to watch this movie so I said OK and here I am typing this review that isn't going anywhere. Well my point was actually I wasn't that interested in the movie. But after watching it I did. Sorta. Kinda.

What I thought was quite unique about this movie is the way the movie was told. Instead of the usual 3rd person view; watching the story unfold as an audience, it is told in a documentary-like style. Rather than watching a movie, it feels more realistic than just an ordinary fiction. I was expecting the usual hack-slash alien killing action movies (actually my dad was REALLY expecting that) but this gave a more fresh feeling compared to the norm. I won't touch anything about the storyline in respect of the effort they put in keeping us in the dark about the movie's story. There's a reason why the trailer was so vague.

I know the Wachowski Bros. are fans of Japanese mecha and anime, but I'm quite sure Peter Jackson might be one too. Some designs look preeeetty similar to Metal Gear Solid 4's mecha designs (*cough*Metal Ray*cough*). If you didn't get this part, its just the gaming geek in me writing. I just needed to get this out of my system since I can't share this with my dad obviously.

OK I think this review is even shittier than my Dragon Tiger Gate review. At least I made more sense in the latter. Or I just wanted to show off my so called deep observation skills. I DID wanted to be a movie director in one point of my life. I still do honestly. For a very shallow reason. i just wanna be around celebs at work

On a side note, this will be the last movie I plan to watch in Kuantan. There are too many secondary script writers who can't help but express their fockin' ideas.