It’s the first full week back from Fall Break, and there’s no holiday where everyone is allowed to dress up in ridiculous outfits which will forever be remembered in the annals of Facebook photos. What, then, is there to do on a weekend night here at Gustavus? District 9 is the movie showing on campus this weekend, and I would highly recommend you check it out.

Then District 9 premiered last summer, I’m not going to lie: I tried to come up with an excuse not to go. After all, I thought to myself, do I really want to pay $9 to go see another shaky camera, first-person filmed, aliens attack, Cloverfield rip off? As soon as the credits rolled, however, I was shocked at how happy I was to be wrong about this movie.

The premise of District 9, while a bit farfetched, is quite intriguing. An alien spaceship stranded over Johannesburg, South Africa, and over 1.5 million aliens lived in a refugee camp for the better part of two decades? I’m in. That’s just the beginning, though.

The core of the movie revolves around the efforts of an alien-human liaison corporation’s efforts to relocate the aliens to a camp situated more comfortably away from any major human habitation.
Spearheading this operation is Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a bit of a sap who finds himself in way over his head. The plot focuses on Wikus and an extremely unfortunate accident which befalls him during the relocation program.

I won’t explain any more of the story, as the script is superbly written and I wouldn’t want to give away any of the twists which pervade District 9. Action is quite intense throughout the movie and at times riveting. Oh, and one other thing, this is perhaps the most visually stunning movie I have seen in recent memory. The camera work, far from being cheesy and over the top, is very engaging. The aliens are startlingly realistic and emotional; who would have thought you could get so much emotion out of CGI creatures lovingly nicknamed “Prawns”? It would be hard to expect anything less than an eye-popping experience coming from producer Peter Jackson, however.

So, if you’re looking for something to do this Friday or Saturday night, don’t sell District 9 short as just another alien-colony-stranded-on-Earth-trying-to-get-home, action movie. Give it a try. It’s good, maybe surprisingly good. I give it two and a half out of three crowns.