One of my favorite places to eat in Atlanta is The Porter in Little Five Points.  I've tried a number of things there but the one dish that I keep going back for is the Cheeseburger.  It's a half-pound burger topped with bacon and cheddar cheese, pickled onions, and greens and it's served on an asiago cheese bun with a side of french fries that are cooked to perfection then tossed in a mixture of garlic and herbs.  As burgers go, it's a little stupefying.  Of course, I can also get a burger at any time of the day or night at Wendy's, but why waste the calories and cholesterol on something that is merely filling when I can save up and have something that's truly special?  And that's what District 9 is--something special.  It's still a sci fi movie with aliens and space ships and laser guns, but it's The Porter's divine version to the quick fired, meaningless Wendy's burger that is something like Transformers 2.

One of the first things I thought about upon leaving the theater after District 9 was the enormous amount of time and money I've spent watching empty, vapid sci fi movies like Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe.  I understand clearly why those movies exist and a little less clearly why they are so popular.  Still, just like with Wendy's, there is a place for them.  Not everyone wants a gussied up burger with lots of thought put into it--and that's fine.  But for those of us who do, we need movies like District 9 and we need them to succeed.  We need thrilling, entertaining, thoughtful movies that aren't simply a mechanism to sell toys and happy meals and coloring books.  We need movies that aren't based on the comic book stories and older movies that we can already experience.  We need movies that are new and exhilarating; movies that create their own mythologies and don't package heroes and villains up into neatly codified archetypes.  As much as I love movies like Star Wars and Iron Man, there's nothing adult about them--nothing that can't be boiled down to a fairy tale or fable that an eight-year old can understand.  District 9 is instead a very adult film that uses the speculative fiction and energy of the sci fi genre to show us something true and troubling about humanity.

The film that District 9 reminds me of the most is the 2006 Alfonso Cuaron masterpiece Children of Men.  It's no wonder, as director Niell Blomkamp called Children of Men "one of [his] favorite films of the last decade" in an interview with Cinematical.  Though Cuaron's film doesn't feature the kinds of fantastical elements on display in District 9, both films are strictly grounded in reality.  Both films feature protagonists that are not cut from the typical hero mold, and both films explore ideas that are relevant today by introducing a simple sci-fi conceit.  That's what the best science fiction does, and I have no doubt that District 9 will sit amongst the classics of the genre.  Every time I lament that there are no new movies, no new ideas, and no fresh voices in a cinema world that is overrun by sequels, remakes, and toy-shilling bullshit, a movie like District 9 comes along to remind me that I'm wrong.  If we only get one genre film of this quality every couple of years, I'll gladly take it.

The rest of this will contain some SPOILERS, so don't read any further if you haven't seen the film.

My love for this movie and its thoughtfulness isn't just based on the film's central allegory about racism and apartheid.  Surely, we should all be glad that a movie with alien spaceships and weapons that turn humans into liquefied grue has enough of a brain to be about something.  Too often the only movies we get to see about these kinds of ideas are dour art-house dramas like The Constant Gardener that are wonderfully made and important films that just aren't really entertaining.  I'll probably never watch City of God again even though it was a brilliant film because it didn't package all of that mystery and filth into something entertaining.  I'll watch lots of movies like that once, but I'll watch something like District 9 over and over because it appeals to both the philosopher and the escapist in me.  Though the film is very much about South Africa by way of aliens, it's also much more complicated than that.

For one thing, I can't remember another protagonist in a movie with mech-suits and UFOs for whom I had such conflicted feelings.  Wikus is a hapless corporate schlub who the film portrays as everything from a likeable bureaucrat to a despicable racist beast in the span of 20 minutes.  By the end, we're rooting for Wikus because he's finally formed a relationship with one of the aliens, but even into the film's final act, he's driven more by self-preservation than by an altruistic urge to help.  As with Children of Men, our "hero's" actual hero moment happens very late in the film.  Until the final climax, even the things that Wikus does right aren't done for the right reasons, and it was fantastic to see that in a movie like this.  Good science fiction films are full of conflicted, imperfect heros, but Wikus is that rare character who is left at the end of the film in a place where his real journey is about to begin.

Then, I love the way that the movie doesn't answer all of the questions that make the story possible.  Why did the aliens stop here, why didn't they use their superior firepower to improve their lot on Earth, and where is their leader?  The beauty of the film lies in the fact that we don't need the answers for the film's story to work.  In fact, the mystery makes it more interesting.  We don't need to be told how a private, multi-national corporation with mercenaries as a security force got roped into the aliens' plight because we can clearly see how that sort of thing could happen in our world today.  We don't get an explanation of how the 'fluid' turns Wikus into an alien, but the simple idea that their technology has a biological component obviates one.  Everything about the film is smarter than it needs to be if it just aspires to be a sci fi action spectacle, but as smart as the movie is, it never fails to be entertaining either.  It's got plenty of action, perfectly-integrated visual effects, and even some emotional moments that tie the characters to the thrill-ride perfectly. 

More than any other film in recent memory, District 9 leaves me dying to see what happens next.  I don't need a videogame adaptation or fanfic quality expanded universe comic stories--I want to see District 10 right now!  Leigh commented that this was a movie that she had wished was two hours longer rather than two hours shorter (like Transformers) and I agree.  If they keep this level of integrity and if enough people support this film, I can see how this thing will open up to a truly epic spectacle in a sequel, and I can only hope that we get there.