District 9 is primarily about an on-going twenty year struggle of co-existence between two divergent life forms: humans and aliens.
Twenty years ago, we as human beings didn’t think twice about sharing Earth with anyone else until a large spacecraft was spotted over the city of Johannesburg, South Africa. Why didn’t this massive ship come to a halt and hover over New York City or Washington D.C. or somewhere in Los Angeles? Why did the aliens choose Johannesburg of all places? Twenty years later, humans still don’t have the answers, but are trying desperately to seek them out.
To human beings, the aliens are known as “Prawns.” Prawns are these disgusting looking creatures that are a cross between a grasshopper and a lobster, or something that your pet cat regurgitated after a hefty sized meal, which is actually appropriate considering the Prawns favorite food to consume in the film is cans of cat food.
The film begins as a documentary. It shows researchers, scientists, and local Africans answering questions about how they feel regarding coexisting with these Prawns. The Local Africans are dumbfounded by the fact that after twenty years the Prawns are still here, and their spacecraft is still hovering over Johannesburg. The researchers and scientists share mutual feelings about the Prawns. The bottom line being that they don’t know how the monstrosity of a spacecraft arrived or why it’s still here. All they know is that a large area has been allocated for the Prawns’ to reside in, known as District 9. Eventually the locals demand that the Prawns be moved to a location far away from the town. Wikus van der Merwe is the main character in the story.
Wikus van der Merwe is a calm, friendly guy who is a member of a private security force known as the MNU. He is appointed the head man, by his boss, to lead a movement into District 9 that will try to evict these Prawns and resettle them to a safer location far away from the city. Wikus van der Merwe, a large team of his fellow bureaucrats, and soldiers invade District 9 and attempt to hand out eviction notices to the aliens. The Prawns are not interested, and want no part of the eviction. They slam doors in the faces of the MNU, scream at the humans in their own language, basically tell them to piss off, and to leave them alone. The intriguing part about this story is that the Prawns don’t speak English, but they can understand it when the humans talk to them. The humans can understand the Prawn language, but again have no knowledge of how to speak it. I suppose after 20 years of coexistence we should be able to interpret and comprehend a strange language, right?
Eventually, Wikus and his team start to break into empty houses and search for clues about the Prawns. Wikus discovers a small canister with the “Prawn” symbol on it, which should have indicated to Wikus not to touch it. As Wikus fiddles with the canister he is sprayed in the face with a strange liquid. A few hours later, abnormal side effects happen to the innocent, but unfortunately curious Wikus van de Merwe. Black liquid starts to drip out of his nose, his finger nails start to come off, eventually his vision is affected, and he passes out. Wikus wakes up in a hospital bed to the sight of a doctor leaning over him. Wikus discovers that the doctor leaning over him is examining his left arm, which is no longer human. His entire left arm is making a slow transformation to becoming Prawn.
Wikus van de Merwe becomes the most valuable and wanted human being on the planet. He is the only human to ever have half Prawn and half human DNA. The MNU hunts him down and attempts to use him as a guinea pig to discover the inner truths about District 9 and the Prawns. Wikus soon becomes a mystery to everyone around him and retreats to the only place that is going to keep him safe, District 9.
District 9 has received 4 1/2 stars out of 5.
