One of the reasons I despise it even more after seeing it a few days ago is that the flick is now the darling of the sci-fi movie-lovin' crowd, who seem to think it's an instant classic. Rolling Stone gave it a near-perfect review, and Ain't It Cool News drooled all over it. Roger Ebert gave it a tepid review, but liked it much more than I did. Let me comment once more on what I think of the movie, and state it clearly: District 9 sucks.
Hard.
Yeah, yeah...I get the allusion (if it's appropriate to use a literary term when talking about a movie) to institutional racism, and the mockumentary format is trendy, I suppose. But Jesus H., folks, this movie just plain bites.
And I have the need to shout that from the rooftops, because I'm still pissed off for being duped.
Imagine if Peter Sellers played the lead in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or, if Aliens was filmed in the same format as Waiting On Guffman. What if Jeff Goldblum was totally unlikable as the lead in The Fly?
Then you'd have District 9.
13 comments:
You sure there's nothing else bothering you that you are transferring? Just asking.
I kind of enjoyed the movie even though I read your review an hour before going and completely expected to hate it.
I found it entertaining and visually very well done. The story was a little weak and became fairly predictable near the end, but hey, what movie isn't these days?
It may be transference, Dr. Freud. My parents were killed by cat-food-eating insects when I was still young, and I've reacted angrily toward all-things-buglike since. :)
Seriously, I just felt duped on this one. I bought my ticket based on previews that showed a thriller-type suspenseful movie, and instead wathed Inspector Clouseau get turned into a bug.
It was a real visual achievement, I agree. But one you get past that accomplishment, it's just a one trick movie with sparkles.
You've lowered my already low expectations for this film, but I'm still curious about it. A friend of mine can't stop raving about it.
Ohhhh man! Are you sure you didn't accidentally wander into GI Joe?? I thought this movie was excellent! I'm going to have to review this one myself now :-p
But seriously, I really enjoyed it. It was a little of a comedic lead role but I thought it really made it interesting as a non-typical lead character who can therefore do non-typical non-hero type things.
A "little of a comedic lead role?"
Are you sure you didn't accidentally wander into The Hangover? :)
Review it, man. I want to see what you liked about it.
Now this just makes me want to see it when I hadn't given a rat's ass about it before! If it sets a new benchmark for bad, I must know what that is.
Of course, I won't run out to the theater to see it. No smoking in there. But, it's now officially on my must rent list just to see how bad it is.
Is it really just plain bad or made-me-wanna-poke-a-fork-in-each-eye bad? Plain bad I can skip. That other kind...well, sometimes the badness is what makes it good.
Imagine if Peter Sellers played the lead in _2001: A Space Odyssey_.
Why not go the full nine and have Sellars play all the major roles? Sellars as Dave v. Sellars as HAL is pure gold!
You are right sir, the movie sucked hard.
The casting? the mockumentary genre? what the hell was it suppose to be? The Office meets independence day with some Blood diamond mixed in??
that movie combined the worst of unbearable romantic holywood action, and politically correct pseudo themes of racism and fugitive camps. All told through this meta narrative in the british social realism commedy genre known from The Office. WTF? how can this possibly not go wrong?
Only the visual side and the action scenes kept the movie up. The first half was simply unwatchable.
This was definitely the WORST movie ever made! Was it supposed to be a news story? Story...what story? If you could stand the jumpy filming or the ridiculous actors (the aliens were actually better than the humans). I fast forwarded most of the "movie" hoping to get away from the commentary. I thought I was watching the directors rendition of the "movie" I would rather have a dentist rip out all of my teeth! 25.00 to buy this piece of crap! I cannot believe anyone could actually say this was any good! Waste of time to watch. DONT buy or rent it - not worth anyone's time
I hate this movie with a passion
If suck had a suckier twin named douche, i would call it douche 9.... this movie stinks. it does not even deserve the title of movie. i think i made it past the 20 minute mark and then my eyelids gave out... there's only so much garbage my ocular & auditory senses can handle.
Oh man, did I dislike this movie! Such lame writing!
I just cannot understand why so many people love it.
Roger Ebert said, "the third act is disappointing", but then he gave the film 3 out of 4 stars?!?
Are most movie fans under the control of an alien mind ray that distorts crappy movies into looking great to them? Bleeeechhhh!
People are still talking about Close Encounters decades later. I seriously doubt if anybody will be talking about District 9 in 20 years.
Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Ten minutes in I wanted it to become the first movie I ever walk out of the theater on (years ago when I actually watched it the first time). Hated the mockumentary format, hated the unlikable characters, there was nothing endearing to draw you in and I didn't even care about the glaring plot holes because I didn't care about the plot. It seems that everybody who defends this movie talks about the original alien/human relationship, visual effects and the social commentary, but never any actual sustenance of a real good movie. By the time the "action sequences" (*Spoiler Alert* Exploding Humans!) arrived, I was so far withdrawn from anything happening in the movie that I just laughed at the stupid gratuitous violence. I'm well aware that this post is over two years old but I just loathed this movie so much that two years later I still needed to vent about it. And perhaps my least favorite thing about it is whenever you try to explain to somebody why it sucked the response is only ever supercilious remarks of "it got really good reviews", "you must not appreciate good art" and "do you even know what that movie's really about?" Yes I do, but the actual movie still sucked. Boy do I feel a lot better now.
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