Worth Seeing: District 9 / PS: NO, Joe!

District 9 is produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp. It's a movie about an alien (the extraterrestrial kind) refugee camp in Johannesburg, South Africa. District 9 if the kind of movie that's more fun the less you know about it.


So I'll just say this: I think it's worth seeing. It won't spoil anything to tell you that the production design and effects are great, and that this movie can be enjoyed on any level from shallow (explosions!) to deep (Apartheid metaphor, barely veiled).


If you are simply in too much of a hurry to see the movie (or you hate aliens, or Peter Jackson, or ... um, Africa?), you can ruin it by watching the short movie that this big movie is based on: Alive in Joburg.


In other news, it seems that against everyone's wishes and plain common sense, GI Joe 2 is already in the works. While contemplating this tragedy, I figured out another reason I hated that movie: The fights remind me of Star Wars Episode I's battles (snap!!). A lot. Check it out:


The ninja's (analogous to Jedi) are really cool, and they flip around and sword fight like crazy. But you just don't care about these strutting personality-vaccuums, so when they're not fighting (90% of their screen time) you're bored with them.


Everyone who's NOT a ninja is fighting a big, cheesy CG battle that just feels... without consequence. When the Joes were battling, I think for a second I imagined Gungans (lots of Jar-Jar's) fighting battle droids, and it just made me want to... to... to pay my bills, or wash my wife's car, or watch SportsCenter, or balance my checkbook or something. The whole thing JUST DOESN'T MATTER.


I will leave you with this riddle: Which is less important, the subjugation of Jar-Jar's people, or the survival of a big CG Eiffel tower?


Just in case you were worried, even the little CG people visibly evacuated the tower first. There is nothing to worry about. Or care about. Or be excited about. Or prevent you from yawning.




Okay, I can't help it--I have to answer my own riddle. They are both infinitely unimportant. This is not a good thing to be thinking when you just paid $9 to be entertained.