12/50: District 9

I felt this movie was set up to be a lot better than I felt it was. I am not sure if I am missed something judging by the reviews of some of my counterparts, but I just didn't feel this movie as much as I thought I was going to.

Upon seeing the trailer for District 9, I have to admit I was pretty jazzed. However, when I finally saw the film, I was sort of disappointed that the aliens were basically in the film throughout, because I feel the less we would have seen of them the better. But, that is just me.

Anyway, the film is basically shot as a documentary with parts shown during and after the events that are taking place (if that makes sense). Aliens have been living in South Africa for a handful of years now and the humans have decided to remove the aliens and transfer into a camp - which almost looks like a concentration camp.

Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is place in charge of removing the aliens and transferring them to the new camp and remove all of the alien weapons that they have stored in their huts. Along the way he comes across a hut with no weapons, but finds a tube with some black liquid in it that explodes onto his body.

Van De Merwe finds the father and son alien that had been collecting the liquid and discovers that they have a fully functional shop beneath their hut. So it is up to him if he is to allow them to leave the planet and return home or capture them and send them back to the new camp.

Honestly, as things started I was coming in not expecting to see the aliens, so to see them right away really disappointed me. I was really excited about the documentary style shooting that was going on, but once some of the things started happening with Van De Merwe that style didn't really make sense to me anymore.

Was it a horrible film? No. But it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. The message being portrayed in the film is great though. Plus, I really enjoyed Copley in The A-Team and was hoping for a bit more from him here. He did well, but not what I got from him as Murdoch.

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The A-Team

There were very few movies that have come out this year that I absolutely wanted to see in the theater. I don't get to the theater as often as I would like, so it is imperative that I scan the summer movies and find the cream of the crop that I would like to see in the theater - and this is one of the few that stuck out.

I was a very big fan of the television series - through repeats - when I was a kid. And, I don't know how many theme songs are as iconic as the one that goes with this series. I remember taking my old cassette player and recording the theme song off of the television just so I could listen to it again whenever I felt like it. Now I can download it as a ringtone, crazy how far we have come.

Anyway, to me, The A-Team lived up to everything that I hoped it would be and more. It was downright entertaining from start to finish. There was unlimited action and humor - and the 'love story' was kept more in the background, which was great.

The casting of this film was stupendous - and I definitely had my doubts when they were all announced. Liam Neeson steps into the role of Hannibal and does so like he was doing it all along. The new it-guy of the past few years, Bradley Cooper, is the new Face and definitely handled those duties in stellar fashion.

The two names that I was not as familiar with are the two I had my doubts about - but was actually very impressed. Rampage Jackson takes on the iconic role of B.A. Baracus - stepping into Mr. T's shoes is hard to do, but Jackson did a pretty good job. The standout to me, however, throughout the whole cast was Sharlto Copley as Murdock. Hilarious the entire time and made a good film - a great film.

Is it an Oscar-worthy film? Heck, no. But that isn't what we come to expect with summer blockbusters (my apologies to The Dark Knight). The summer is for fun, popcorn flicks and this one did exactly what it set out to do - at least for me.

It was pretty interesting the way they handled everything - they show how the 'team' comes together and how they have become a pretty darn good secret mission team over the years. They also show their wrongful imprisonment and subsequent escape.

This gave me high hopes because, like I said, this was a pretty fun movie. I felt that they may have left us with the possibility of sequels - which I am hoping for.

It is actually pretty sad that this film has suffered domestically at the boxoffice. With so many uninspiring film releases this summer, this one was surely a hit. I hope that through DVD sells and foreign boxoffice it can make enough money to give us the sequels that it deserves.

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