District Arcade Experience.

I went out and saw District 9 PRE-noon today, which for me is unheard of.  Hell, it’s more common for me to drink a beer before noon than go catch a movie.  I was there about 15 minutes early so I hit the mini arcade; the kind at your local theater where games still cost a quarter.  The red, blue, and yellow steering wheels of Super Off Road did catch my eye.  BUT, I only had enough time for one game (unless I completely suck ass at arcade games; but I tend to get the most out of my Washington heads), so I opted for one of my favorite arcade games of ALL TIME in the 1992 Konami cabinet simply titled: X-Men.

…Naw, I’ll Take…

It’s absolutely stunning that Dazzler is a character though.  I mean fuck.  Out of ALL the tens… HUNDREDS, of great X-Men characters, she’s gonna be one of them??  I ended up taking Colossus, before he died and came back to life (1992 here dudes), and beating that Australian prick Pyro to a pulp before submitting to the Blob at the end of the second level.  Few quick observations:

1. Human Sized Sentinels? This might be the ONLY X-Men expanded universe media with little 6 foot tall sentinels.  One could argue the “wild sentinels” in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run might count, but those weren’t standard (they looked like animals, not like humans).
2. Classic Konami Beat ‘Em Up Engine. I’m note even sure if they called software capabilities “engines” back in 1992, I was too busy playing games to care, but I noticed today that the engine is the EXACT same as other Konami “beat ‘em ups”.  Most notably Turtles In Time. Both games were released in ’92.
3. Bad Guys Are More Fun. It’s almost teasing to have a boss cast such as Pyro, Blob, Wendigo, Nimrod, The White Queen, Juggernaut, and Mystique .  Because nothing would be more fun than playing as these characters.  This is the ONE reason why X-Men Legends 2 is worth playing.

As far as the actual movie is concerned.  Of course I liked it.  It’s VERY refreshing to see a wholly original action flick like this in an age of remakes, comic adaptations, toy flicks, sequels, etc.  Alien puke?  Alien piss?  Alien weapons?  AWESOME.  And obviously (Neill Blomkamp is from South Africa, where the film takes place) there are some huge political and sociological underpinnings which really enhance the film.  Apartheid, poverty, drug abuse, crime, terrorism, bioengineering, medical technology, segregation, racism (or specism), immigration, nationalism, and more are all touched on here.  Here are my complaints:  the last third of the movie devolves into a boorish action fest with guys grabbing guns and yelling, the story veered from a political/sociological angle [see: above] to a revenge/escape story, and the ending was FAR too sequel leanish.

Overall I enjoyed it, and would recommend it.  DISTRICT 9. And NO, this is NOT a Peter Jackson flick, he just funded it.  He didn’t write, shoot, direct, or storyboard it.  Seeing this made me realize he should stick to production actually, but that’s just me.

-Sonny Wilkins