You might not expect an alien invasion movie to deal with important topics like apartheid, immigration, and the military industrial complex, yet that, surprisingly, is what happens in what might seem to be just another empty-headed summer action flick.
Because "District 9" is an alien invasion movie like no other. These aliens are not conquerors but refugees, marooned on earth 20 years ago when their spaceship settled in the sky above Johannesburg. Eventually ferried to a settlement camp below their spaceship, more than a million of them live in a special district where they live in regimented squalor, both supported and preyed upon by humans. Now the government wants the land of District 9, and has started the process of notifying them of an impending relocation to a new district on less valuable land.
Told in a cinema-verite documentary style, "District 9" shows us a completely imagined world in a gritty, grubby way, and follows the head of the relocation project, an affable bureaucrat named Wikus Van De Merwe, superbly played by Sharlto Copley. Wikus gets in over his head soon enough, and the film turns into an exciting chase movie.
Special effects are so good they don't look like special effects. Direction and screenplay, by Neill Blomkamp, heretofore an animator, is skillful and visceral. Some credit for the quality of "District 9," with a first time feature director and largely unknown principal actors, must surely go to producer Peter ("Lord of the Rings") Jackson.
"District 9" satisfies on many levels and will surprise and reward any viewer who pays attention.
Rated R. 112 minutes. Neill Blomkamp - Director / Writer (screenplay), Terri Tatchell - Writer (screenplay), Peter Jackson - Producer, Trent Opaloch - Cinematographer, Clinton Shorter - Composer, Philip Ivey - Production Designer, Julian Clarke - Editor.
Principal actors: Sharlto Copley and David James.
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