District 9

District 9 has been touted as one of the most substantial films to come out so far this year, which it is; but thats hardly a substantial feat as it is 2009 and not any other year in the history of films and film-going (though the 2nd half already has yielded a lot of worthwhile shit with more interesting looking stuff to come, hopefully). Though the movie is bookmarked by some really engaging faux-doc sequences, the bulk of what lies in between is, unfortunately, pretty standard action/sci-fi fare.

The film begins as a documentary looking back on the events surrounding the evacuation and relocation of the residents of District 9 in Johannesburg, a dilapidated shanty town for aliens. The film continues following our protagonist, bureaucratic boob Wikus (non-actor Sharlto Copley, who gives a multi-layered, strong "everyman" performance) as he and his team go about serving eviction notices to the "prawns", without a doubt the most interesting and engaging portion of the film, before something happens that fucks everything and the movie loses its reportage style in favor of an omniscient camera concerned primarily on action (so much so its lens is often being spattered with blood).

For me, this is where the film sort of loses my interest,as it devolves into a fantastical "one against all" narrative that really betrays the first part of the film. There are a lot of really interesting elements at play here; a gang of Nigerians who rule district 9 with cat food, shady government dealings, a ticking time-bomb of a plot device and the aforementioned documentary all allude to a socio-political message that the film never really gets around to because it gets too lost in a lot of CG action and exploding heads and robots. There is a lot of imagery and situations recalling apartheid-era South Africa and modern refugee camps, but not much substance arises out of the allusions beyond the surface of them. First time director/co-writer Neill Blomkamp is clearly talented and adept, as well as visually inventive with a knack for interesting, well-rounded characters, but it seems as though he got cold feet and left one leg in the door of standard science-fiction as he was trying to achieve something new. That being said, I hope he can fully extricate himself from those trappings for his next feature, to which I look forward (even if it's "District 10"). B-

Other semi-related thoughts:

-This is certainly no Cloverfield.

-The advertising campaign was pretty great though, lets see some more subtlety like that (I'm looking at you "Sorority Row")

-Kudos on making a film about aliens coming to Earth in which the humans are the monsters and we are made to sympathize with the "other". This theme plays out most notably with Wikus ;)

-The ending goes on and on through all these pointless jukes and jerks; pointless because we know what the hero ultimately will do, and he finally does it.

-fuck fuck fuck Transformers. Two times.