District 9 – Blu-ray Disc Review

December 21, 2009 – 12:34 PM - Posted by: Justin Sluss

Tags: BD-Live, Cinechat, Digital Copy, God of War III, Jason Cope, John Sumner, movieIQ, Nathalie Boltt, Neill Blomkamp, Nick Blake, Peter Jackson, PlayStation 3, PS3, PS3 Demo, Sharlto Copley, Sony, Terri Tatchell, Tim Gordon, Vanessa Haywood

has an average rating of 8.4 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio
are ALL in HD & include a PS3 Demo!
–
– 2009
– 112 minutes
– Sony
–
Street Date: December 22nd, 2009
This uses 22.8GB for the movie out of 45.7GB total.

Overall Verdict – A Solid Recommendation

Buy it for $17.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review written by: Justin Sluss —

Trailer:

The Movie Itself was Produced by Peter Jackson (of “The Lord of the Rings” live-action trilogy films fame), co-wrote and Directed by Neill Blomkamp. The screenplay was co-wrote by Terri Tatchell and as mentioned, Blomkamp. The film started out as a short and basically a project that came of the original plan to make a “Halo” video game adaptation motion picture, originally then said to have Jackson serving as director or producer. That project got canceled and instead of wasting this momentum to do a Sci-Fi, Jackson put his producing efforts and funding behind this concept created by Blomkamp & Tatchell. The result is undoubtedly one of the most unique Sci-Fi films made in the past few decades, with lots of obvious messages in it’s story and also political undertones about the situation in South Africa where the film takes place. Now I know, as far as Sci-Fi films go, especially ones about an alien “first contact” situation, it may sound a bit weird to be in a South African setting but keep in mind two things; First and foremost, the filmmaker (Neill Blomkamp) is originally from South Africa and secondly he uses this in his film to convey his message and to prove that we are (mostly as Americans) stereotypical to think the first alien contact would come in the form of a U.F.O. over The White House in Washington, D.C. — that only happens in Roland Emmerich films.

The concept itself spawned actually from co-writer/director Neill Blomkamp‘s 2005 6 minute short film “Alive in Joburg“. Sadly this original short is nowhere to be found on this Blu-ray Disc release but I felt this was worth mentioning where the story originated specifically for those interested. Another thing worth mentioning is that Blomkamp learned most of his 3D skills using software made by the man who plays our lead character in the film, Sharlto Copley who was also a friend previous to this film.

The film for the first act and a bit of the second act has mostly a documentary style approach to it following our main character “Wikus Van De Merwe” (played brilliantly by Sharlto Copley) who works with the “MNU” (short for “Multi-National United“), a large corporation put in charge by the South African government of controlling the alien population that is left in the town of Johannesburg in an area called “District 9” — where the film gets it’s name. As we learn from the early bit of the film in documentary style interviews with “Wikus” and others, the U.F.O. originally appeared above the city of Johannesburg during the mid-1980′s and appeared to stuck or not capable of communication. The South African government sent in military to the U.F.O. and had them blowtorch an opening in the vessel, only to find the ship’s inhabits in very poor weak condition. Much like immigrants from another country are treated, our illegal (literal) aliens are put in to this large camp to be kept away from the human inhabitants of the city.

This plan has worked for now twenty years until now, as we are in the present day setting (presumably 2009) where our main character and worker for MNU has been put in charge of evicting the alien inhabitants and moving them to a new location, more like a concentration camp. This is where the real action starts and our film really develops it’s strong story focusing mainly around “Wikus” and a couple alien characters.

In closing, as I said earlier, “District 9” is undoubtedly one of the most unique, innovative Science Fiction (Sci-Fi) films I have seen in the past few decades. What is so crazy about that is that this didn’t have some huge insane budget, just a very talented crew of filmmakers, CG animators, motion capture actor(s) and so forth. If you missed this in it’s theatrical run or just want to witness it again (and again), pick up “District 9” tomorrow (December 22nd, 2009) on Blu-ray Disc from Sony.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc) in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. First and foremost, the black level here is very solid which helps bring out a great amount of detail, especially in close-ups. The obvious amount of CG (computer generated) animation for the aliens and their ship looks very realistic, almost comparable to such huge blockbuster Hollywood films such as “Transformers“. The color palette is very vibrant here, especially in shots that are meant to be cinematic — more-so than the documentary style footage. The documentary style footage does look great but has a different look to it as it was shot on a hand-held Sony EX1 Hi-Def digital camera. The cinematic style footage was shot digitally on a Red One camera in Hi-Def. The fleshtones are accurate, with our main character “Wikus” serving as a great comparison piece to our alien co-stars.

Overall, the blend between the documentary and cinematic styles of this film works out great and delivers an extremely impressive Hi-Def visual presentation on Blu-ray Disc; enough to earn it an almost perfect “4.5 Star Rating” for overall video quality. Kudos to Sony and of course the Director, Director of Photography and so forth for a job well done.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. LFE is present but nowhere near it’s peak during the first act of the film, as it is more of a documentary style during that act (the first 30-45 minutes or so). Dialogue is distinct and delivered perfectly throughout, never requiring any volume adjustments of any sort. Once we get to acts 2 and 3 of the film (the last hour or so), the LFE really starts to rattle and let you know your subwoofer is on. The amount of rear channel presence throughout the film (all 3 acts) is very impressive and enough to keep you very involved with the action happening onscreen. The audio presentation is at times (namely acts 2 and 3) worthy of being called “demo material” and with that being said, it really should come as no surprise that this earns a perfect “5 Star Rating” for overall audio quality. Again, just as I said for video quality, kudos to the folks at Sony and the film’s sound designer(s) for a job well done.

Bonus materials are ALL presented in High Definition (HD) using the AVC MPEG-4 codec for video and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound @192kbps unless otherwise noted.

• BD-Live is included on this Sony Blu-ray Disc release which requires the user to be on a “Profile 2.0” capable Blu-ray Disc Player with internet connectivity. This release includes a number of BD-Live enabled features such as “movieIQ” & “cinechat“.
• Audio Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Neill Blomkamp
• “Joburg From Above: Satellite and Schematics of the World of District 9 – Interactive Map” allows you to look at the different types of technology, aliens in such in the film as you watch using the arrow keys and “enter” button on your remote. It should go without saying, because of the subtitle, that this is an interactive feature and not featurette.
• “Deleted Scenes” (23:28 – HD) may be in Hi-Def but its not as good of quality as the film itself is presented in. These scenes do prove to be entertaining, a bit more informative into this Sci-Fi fantasy world and are worth the watch if you enjoyed the film.
• “The Alien Agenda: A Filmmaker’s Log” (34:19 HD) gives us a great glimpse at how this project came to be and how Peter Jackson (of “The Lord of the Rings” live-action film trilogy fame) who offers a good interview. Most importantly though we get interviews with the Director/Co-Writer Neill Blomkamp discussing doing a film based in South Africa as well other interviews with cast and crew members.
• “Metamorphasis: The Transformation of Wikus” (9:52 – HD) is pretty interesting if you like to see how make-up and “old school” special effects are applied and such.
• “Innovation: The Acting and Improvisation of District 9” (12:05 – HD) takes a look at the improvisation and documentary style blend used here and what it took to get it to be just right.
• “Conception and Design: Creating the World of District 9” (13:18 – HD) should be self-explanatory by it’s title.
• “Alien Generation: The Visual Effects of District 9” (10:18 – HD) should be self-explanatory by it’s title.
• Digital Copy is included on this release first on the Blu-ray for Sony PlayStation 3 owners to transfer a digital copy to their PSP (PlayStation Portable). For the rest of us, we get a digital copy on a 2nd DVD-ROM disc which is compatible with both PC and Mac, Windows Media and iTunes portable devices.
• “God of War III Demo” is included for Sony PlayStation 3 users. This is the demo from E3 this year and lasts a good 15 minutes or so, depending on how good you are at the game. Once you complete the demo you will get a short little “making of” style featurette from a couple of the guys that are working on the game. This is a FIRST from Sony to include a PS3 Demo on a Blu-ray Disc release and I hope its the first of many to come. This is a really cool bonus feature for PS3 owners — especially since you can’t download this yet on the PlayStation Network, it seems to be exclusive to this release and the E3 trade show.

Overall, the bonus materials we get here are very impressive (ALL in Hi-Def) and pretty lengthy. The digital copy and the PS3 Demo (of “God of War III“) inclusions are also very awesome — for those capable of enjoying those features. Fans of the film will definitely be pleased with the supplemental materials found here.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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