District 9 review

District 9 is a film directed by Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson, and it stars Sharlton Copley, Jason Cope, and Robert Hobbes. The film runs for a total of 112 minutes, and was first released in New Zealand and Australia on August 14, 2009.

Plot Overview

The film starts out in a mock documentary style, showning how an alien ship drifted into the Earth’s atmosphere and came to a stop above the city of Johannesburg in South Africa. Human military troops boarded the ship and found a large number of malnourished aliens within. The sickly aliens were then transported down to medical camps stationed beneath the ship for treatment. The aliens took up residence in the area beneath the mothership, which eventually came to be known as a slum area called District 9.

After twenty years, with the alien population growing and with the increasing tension between them and the humans, the government decides to evict the aliens and move them to an area further away from Johannesburg. Wikus van de Merwe (portrayed by Sharlton Copley), an agent of Multinational United (MNU), is assigned to head the eviction. He and his team head into District 9 to hand out eviction notices. Wikus is exposed to a strange liquid as he was confiscating a suspicious metal tube that he found in one of the alien’s houses. The liquid alters his DNA, slowly transforming into an alien starting with his arm. Upon discovering Wikus’ transformation, MNU keeps him in their secret laboratories to experiment on him. He becomes a valuable commodity when it is discovered that he is able to use alien weaponry, which normal humans are not able to wield because the weapons are attuned to the aliens’ DNA. When Wikus manages to escape from the lab, he seeks refuge in District 9. An alien the MNU named Christopher Johnson tells Wikus that the alien mothership contained technology that could reverse his transformation. The liquid that Wikus confiscated turns out to be fuel for a smaller ship that Christopher intended to use to get back to the mothership, and Christopher tells Wikus that he could “fix” him if they could get it back from the MNU. Wikus initially refuses to help Christopher get the fuel back, but driven by the desire to return to a normal life as well as sympathy for Christopher and his son, he eventually agrees.

I don’t want to spoil the entire movie for the rest of you, but let’s just say that when Wikus says that the endeavor is a “suicide mission”, he wasn’t kidding.

Review

District 9’s gritty setting in the middle of South Africa was something new to me since I was expecting something like Independence Day or Aliens when I was told that this was a film that involved extraterrestrials (yes,  I know, I ‘m a no0b when it comes to the sci fi genre, but hey, this review is based entirely on my opinion after all). The depiction of District 9 as a slum area really struck a chord in me because, well, let’s face it; there’s a lot of areas that look like that in my country. The way the film portrayed the slums was as real as you could get, complete with citizens scouring the garbage heaps for food, cock fights (only they were using little alien whip scorpion-like creatures instead of roosters), and illegal trade (the aliens were strangely addicted to cat food, so the humans found ways to sell them the goods at exorbitant prices).

The use of the faux documentary format brought more humanity and realism into the film, and Wikus himself is shown to be a very normal – albeit unfortunate – human being, with very real human weaknesses and flaws. Aliens being portrayed as the victims of prejudice and selfish human behavior was also a refreshing break from all the alien films that portrayed them as villains. The overall realistic feel the film had made it much easier to relate to the characters and really get into the story.

The visuals were amazing. Everything – even the aliens – looked real, and never looked out of place despite their strange appearances. The aliens’ designs were a nice deviation from the stereotypical aliens who have big heads and big eyes, and their faces manage to portray a good range of emotions despite their crustacean-like appearance.

I’ve never been a big fan of the science fiction genre, especially books or films that involve aliens. In fact, when one of the friends I watched this film with mentioned that it was a sci-fi alien film, I wrinkled my nose in distaste. After watching this film though, I think I’ll be more open-minded about alien movies and will definitely be looking out for other films that are as good as District 9.

2009 Hugo Award Winners

The list of 2009 Hugo Award winners has been posted in a press release on the official website for the Anticipation, the 67th Worldcon! Here’s the list of winners for quick reference:

Best Novel
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)

Best Novella
“The Erdmann Nexus” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s Oct/Nov 2008)

Best Novelette
“Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s Mar 2008)

Best Short Story
“Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two)

Best Related Book
Your Hate Mail Will be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998–2008 by John Scalzi (Subterranean Press)

Best Graphic Story
Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones Written by Kaja & Phil Foglio, art by Phil Foglio, colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
WALL-E Andrew Stanton & Pete Docter, story; Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon, screenplay; Andrew Stanton, director (Pixar/Walt Disney)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen , writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)

Best Editor, Short Form
Ellen Datlow

Best Editor, Long Form
David G. Hartwell

Best Professional Artist
Donato Giancola

Best Semiprozine
Weird Tales edited by Ann VanderMeer & Stephen H. Segal

Best Fanzine
Electric Velocipede edited by John Klima

Best Fan Writer
Cheryl Morgan

Best Fan Artist
Frank Wu

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
David Anthony Durham

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen fulfills its promises

[This was supposed to be posted a few weeks ago, but I completely forgot to finish my draft. Hahaha.]

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen delivers on its promise of "more alien robots, bigger explosions, and much more Megan Fox".

More alien robots? Check. Bigger explosions? Check. More Megan Fox? Double check.

Seriously, that was all the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was about. Alien robots, explosions, and Megan Fox. While I’ll admit that I had a great time watching it with a friend and my boyfriend, I started to have second thoughts when I actually sat down and thought about it.

The film’s plot…wait, what plot? The plot was barely even there amidst all the KA-BOOM, slapstick comedy, and Megan Fox eyecandy. There were so many damn holes in the supposed plot that I lost track of them all. The things I had the most trouble wrapping my brain around were Sam Witwicky’s strange lack of common sense to use the Matrix shard to revive Optimus Prime when a similar piece had successfully revived Megatron  (maybe they could argue that Optimus is a Prime and is therefore special and different from regular Transformers, but that wasn’t made clear in the film), and the Decepticon that transformed into a college hottie (LOLWHUT?). I won’t go into detail on this anymore, since this Transformers 2 FAQ over at Topless Robot actually discusses the plot holes and the rest of the film’s problems much better than I – or probably anyone else – could.

On the plus side, the action sequences in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were made of pure awesome. Some people have complained that those scenes were too hard to follow, too nausea-inducing, or too full of Megan Fox’s bouncing breasts in slow motion, but I honestly enjoyed watching the action sequences. The action sequences in the first film were worse, with everything being a bit too zoomed-in on the wrong places and the choreography needing a bit of work. Watching Optimus doing acrobatics that somehow reminded me of Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell amused me (and no, I’m not implying that Optimus is feminine in any way). My only complaint about the action sequences in Revenge of the Fallen is that they were far more brutal compared to the first movie, or anything I remember from the Transformers franchise. Optimus saying “Give me your face!” while ripping his opponent’s face off was kind of scary.

All of this makes me wonder what’ll happen in Transformers 3. I’m not really expecting much after this film, but I just hope they don’t go through with Tom de Santo’s idea for somehow including the Dinobots. Not that I hate the Dinobots, but let’s not kill the rest of the Transformers universe in this trainwreck. Kthxbai.

Blood: The Last Vampire (2009) review

Blood: The Last Vampire (released as Last Blood in Japan) is a film based on the anime movie of the same title. It’s directed by Chris Nahon, with screenplay by Chris Chow. It stars Gianna Jun (Jeon Ji-Hyun), Allison Miller, Koyuki, Liam Cunningham, Larry Lamb, and Yasuaki Kurata. The film runs for a total of 91 minutes, and premiered in Japan in April 2009.

First, I would like to admit that I never finished watching the original anime film Blood: The Last Vampire. I did watch some parts of it whenever I caught it on TV – enough to get the gist of the film, at least – but I never really watched it all the way through. Next, I would like to state that you don’t need to watch the anime version to tell that the live action version was subpar.

Before I expound on my opinion of the film, let me give you a rundown of the plot first. The film is set in 1970. Saya (portrayed by Korean actress Gianna Jun), a half-vampire half-human vampire hunter, is sent to pose as a high school student in an American military airbase. She discovers that two of her classmates are vampires, and proceeds to kill them after they attempt to hurt another high school student named Alice McKee (portrayed by Allison Miller). Though Saya locked her out of the gym and told her to run away, Alice was peeking into the gym throughout the entire battle and witnesses the “murders”. She runs off to tell her dad, General McKee (portrayed by Larry Lamb), about what she saw, but they find no evidence of the fight even occurring by the time they get there. They are confronted by two men, Michael and Luke (portrayed by Liam Cunningham and JJ Feild respectively), who pose as CIA agents in an attempt convince General McKee not to meddle with their business. Michael and Luke, in truth, work for a group known as “The Council” who apparently intend to exterminate the vampires as well as strongest of them all, a female vampire named Onigen (portrayed by Koyuki). Both Alice and her father conduct their own (separate) investigations of the situation, dragging themselves deeper into the entire mess.

The plot was so-so. I found the fact Saya is a half-vampire and that the main antagonist is actually Saya’s mother to be terribly cliche. It also severely detracts from the original film, removing key characters like Nurse Makiho, David, and Lewis, replacing them with different characters altogether. From what I know, Onigen was not at all present in the original film. Comparisons to the original film aside, the addition of the character Alice McKee was just…sad. Alice is a stereotypical nosy-teenager-slash-damsel-in-distress, who does nothing but get herself into trouble and has to be saved by the protagonist. It also annoyed me that there are parts where she is inexplicably knowledgeable about things; for example, she suddenly decides to revive Saya with her blood despite the fact that it was never really made clear to her that Saya is a vampire; she witnessed Saya feeding a vampire her blood before it died, but other than that, there was no clear indication of when and how she realized that Saya was a vampire.  I found the build up of Saya’s and Alice’s relationship as friends to be wanting as well; it’s kind of hard to believe that they’d get so attached to each other in such a short period of time. I think that the movie would have actually worked better if Alice was removed altogether, or rewritten to have a more minor role.

It’s also really, really strange that there were no subtitles in the sequences shown in the Japanese language. Having no subtitles for short segments that didn’t really play major parts in the film’s plot would have been tolerable, but there were a lot of scenes showing Saya’s past that were incomprehensible because of the lack of subtitles. I hope, for the film’s sake, that that was just an error in the copy given to the cinema I watched it in, or that subtitles will be added for future releases.

Despite all my complaints, the film still has some merits. The visuals were brilliant and reminded me of what you’d see in a Production I.G (the animatino company that produced the original film) project. The action sequences were well choreographed as far as I could tell (there were a lot of cuts to censor the gore, so it made some scenes too choppy, but I think that’s the MTRCB’s fault). I also thought the music was cool, but maybe that’s just me being biased toward some of the rock music/songs they used in the film.

While the film is definitely a treat for the eyes and ears, the stereotypical plot line and badly developed characters bring the quality of this film down. I can’t really say that I’m surprised by this, seeing as other films based on anime like Dragonball Evolution and Speed Racer were mostly just about the visuals too. Movie makers should seriously start rethinking their approach to adapting anime into film before we wind up with even more ill-conceived eyecandy.

OH DISNEY.

Prince Philippe: When will I see you again?

Aurora: Oh never, never!

Prince Philippe: Never?

Aurora: Well, maybe someday!

Prince Philippe: When? Tomorrow?

Aurora: Oh, no! This evening!

El: *facepalms*

—-

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Sleeping Beauty actually, I adore Maleficent, but let’s not go there; it only recently dawned on me how *FACEPALM* or *HEADDESK* worthy the dialogue is.

And Maleficent’s laughter is still epic. I really need to get a .wav/.mp3 file of it to use as a message alert tone on my phone.