The Lovely Bones

Running Time: Two hours and fifteen minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Susie Salmon should be falling in love. She should be hanging out with her friends, having dinner with her family, and keeping up with the 1973 pop culture and fashion like any other 14 year old girl of the time. Instead, her life is cut short by a monstrous neighbor, leaving Susie to watch the impact that her murder has on her friends, family and killer from her own unique afterlife.

The Lovely Bones is an adaptation of a 2002 best-selling novel of the same title, updated to film by the team behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, and (in 2011 and 2012) the Hobbit films. They are, of course, no strangers to adapting works of other mediums into movies. However, they've taken a bit of a misstep with this one. Using their creative license, Peter Jackson and the other writers have shifted the story's focus from a family's methods of coping with tragedy into one that never has a full realization of what it's about.

The title of the book, The Lovely Bones, refers to the growth of Susie's family and friends after they fall apart in mourning for the young girl. In the movie, they never make that recovery because they never lose themselves enough to create a need to recover. All sex, guilt, back-story, and the reasoning behind certain relationships are removed in order to make a PG-13 film with plenty of time for Jackson to play around with the special effect-laden heaven.

The magnificent acting of Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon and Stanley Tucci as George Harvey (her killer) hold the film together, though, and provide the emotional depth needed to keep the audience intrigued. Mark Wahlberg and Susan Sarandon also play interesting and contrasting roles as Susie's grieving father (bent on catching the killer, whom he believes to be Mr. Harvey) and her eccentric grandmother, who provides useful advice to the characters and comic relief from the depressing story to the audience.

While not bad per se, The Lovely Bones is only a shell of its source material. Crammed down from an eight year timeline to less than one, it is rushed and unfulfilling. Those unable to read the book may find this to be a tofu of sorts, providing at least a substitute for a better option. But for everybody else it will prove, once again, that the original is (almost*) always better.

*see Youth in Revolt review

District 9

Running time: Just under two hours

MPAA Rating: R

What would happen if aliens came to Earth? Would they destroy national monuments? Use humans as hosts for their eggs? Exterminate us to make use of our planet? Many movies have skipped the “if” and gone straight to the “how” regarding extraterrestrial invasions. District 9 asks us the question: would the aliens be the soulless monsters, or would we?

The movie is based on a short film that the director, Neill Blomkamp, directed in 2005 titled “Alive in Joburg”. As did its source material, District 9 details the failing relations between humans and “prawns” (a derogatory term that likens them to bottom-feeders). After becoming stranded on Earth in Johannesburg, South Africa, the one million lost creatures are met with initial curiosity and aid. This dissolves over the next two decades as governments and enterprises become more and more interested in the species’ biology and weapons technology and less and less about their well-being. The main plot begins as the aliens are set to be evicted from their homes in the ghetto “district 9” into concentration camps at “district 10” when a man dealing eviction notices unwittingly sets a significant course-change into the future of both groups.

This is some of the most original science fiction to come to film in quite a long time. Recycled movie universes from decades past, such as Star Trek and Terminator, have ruled over the genre at the box office so far this year. Unlike those examples, District 9 is not necessarily action-based. While present, action scenes exist in this movie because they are a necessary part of the storyline, and not the other way around.

District 9 doesn’t try to explain everything to the audience. The characters’ ability to speak each others’ languages and issues regarding the transfer of DNA are not given lengthy explanation, but are left to the viewer’s imagination. The numerous themes in the film are handled well by the director and, perhaps taking a cue from the film’s producer, Peter Jackson, the movie leaves us with only the first part of an epic struggle.

Since much of the movie’s appeal stems from the mystery surrounding the main story arc, I won’t spoil anything here. What I can say is that what this movie does, it does well and it is inevitably bound to become a sci-fi franchise of epic proportions. See district 9 with a sense of curiosity, but be prepared; the dark side of human nature runs deep in this movie. If you can’t handle seeing E.T. suffering unspeakable cruelty and fighting back, you may want to see “Aliens in the Attic” for some feel-goods instead.