After the letdowns of G.I. Joe, Terminator: Salvation, and Transformers 2, I’m happy to say that District 9 exceeded my expectations. And they were actually pretty high going in. Even more amazing is the budget that was less than $40 million. The Neill Blomkamp/Peter Jakson director/producer duo was working on the Halo movie before it was canceled, and I’m convinced that it would’ve been the best video game movie ever (of course, this list epitomizes “not saying much”).
But back to the movie. There’s a lot more action than I was expecting, and the action’s far, far more exciting than I was expecting. The last twenty minutes glued me the same way the bombing scene in Pearl Harbor did. The interrogation from the trailers isn’t in the movie. I’m going to call that a reverse-spoiler because I was waiting for it the entire time I was watching and I get irritated when I’m expecting a scene to happen in a movie and wondering if it’ll be next. With summer coming to a close, it’s a dead-heat between District 9 and Star Trek for my favorite movie this year. (Though it’s the second year in a row that I didn’t go with my friends to the Pixar movie then just put it off and all of a sudden it’s almost out of theaters.)
Update: When talking about my favorite movie this summer, somehow I freakin’ forgot about Harry Potter. I think it’s because I’ve been trying to force out the memory of the front row seats at the midnight showing.