Fun Stuff > ENJOY
District 9
Alex C:
It's totally in perspective if you haven't seen that terribly many films.
axerton:
My only real complaint about the movie was every time the lightning guns were pulled out and someone exploded bits of them would splatter against the screen - one step of logic means that it woudl spat agains the camera, when there clearly is not supposed to be a camera - this might have been less annoying had they not had the doco part of the film ealier.
Also the main soldier dude suffered from a major case of "C'mon be serious, your dead. Just die."
AanAllein:
--- Quote from: variable_star on 22 Aug 2009, 13:00 ---
--- Quote from: Johnny C on 22 Aug 2009, 12:51 ---You can't really argue that characters who aren't very well-developed help to make a film "flawless," especially if they're antagonists!
--- End quote ---
Okay, if you guys want to argue semantics: obviously no film is "flawless". Yet "District 9" has very specific themes to express and it nails each one of them, weaving a complex tale in the process. It was exciting, intelligent, immersive, and above all entertaining. There are, perhaps, four or five other films I can credit with accomplishing this.
I suppose the filmmakers, to satisfy those who are craving a full-on faux documentary, could've had the commentators drop hints here and there, and eventually by the end of the film the audience has pieced together the bigger picture. Yet outside of something like a Christopher Guest comedy, this is something that could never quite work. Audiences have the collective attention spans of gradeschool children, and as Johnny mentioned the goal is to create a blockbuster in the end.
--- End quote ---
I don't have a problem with minor characters, even major antagonists not having significant screen time spent on their development. But it's a bit hard to argue that the colonel was anything other than a scenery-chewing stereotype, in my opinion. Now, I have no problem with that evaluating it as a pure action-film (which it obviously was not), but in the context of a film that up until then has done a great job of making the world feel real, it was an extremely annoying element. It would have been very easy to have him feel like a real person without changing the plot any - maybe that was more a problem with the actor than the script, but still (although "I love watching you bugs die?" C'mon. A very small step up from "That makes me feel angry!")
I was okay with the film slipping in and out of the documentary style - so many films abuse that documentary approach to the point of implausibility that it was better just to abandon it. But the exposition was ham-handed at times, and could certainly have been improved significantly while retaining a strong message. Example: "That was 20 years of work!" right near the start. Unnecessary, and clunky.
Do any of these problems make District 9 a terrible film? Of course not. It's a very good, arguably great film, especially given its genre. But it's hardly the flawless masterwork that you are representing it as.
variable_star:
--- Quote from: Johnny C on 22 Aug 2009, 19:47 ---
--- Quote from: variable_star on 22 Aug 2009, 13:00 ---Okay, if you guys want to argue semantics: obviously no film is "flawless". Yet "District 9" has very specific themes to express and it nails each one of them, weaving a complex tale in the process. It was exciting, intelligent, immersive, and above all entertaining. There are, perhaps, four or five other films I can credit with accomplishing this.
--- End quote ---
Whoa. I liked the film a lot and it's one of my favourites from this year for sure but you gotta put this into perspective.
--- End quote ---
True enough, I suppose I'm the token fanboy here. This film just stands head and shoulders above the rest of the dreck I've waded through over the past few years, it's easy to become a bit over-excited about it.
variable_star:
--- Quote from: Alex C on 22 Aug 2009, 20:02 ---It's totally in perspective if you haven't seen that terribly many films.
--- End quote ---
What? Oh right, you're trying out a joke. That's good, a bit on the nose, but a fine attempt.
Come back with something more substantial next time.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version