District 9

Editorial

Aliens. We've had cute ones. We've had nasty bastards, stupid ones and smart ones. We've had so bloody many of them that putting a fresh spin on the movie alien is a tricky thing. But, as newcomer Neill Blomkamp proves with District 9, not entirely impossible. A Peter Jackson protege, the South African makes his debut with this expansion of his acclaimed short film, Alive In Joburg, which dealt with the problems alien immigrants faced in a city that, based on previous experience, should be tolerant above all things.

Employing a documentary style, Blomkamp posits aliens as thinly-veiled allegory to South Africa's chequered apartheid past, with the affable and bumbling Wikus (Copley) emerging as the aliens' Mandela figure. The effects, put together on a mid-sized budget that would probably pay for Optimus Prime's right leg, are astonishing, with the CG bug-like aliens utterly convincing in their movements, body language and interactions with the environment. 

But it's a human effect that's the film's strongest asset: Copley, a first-time actor, gives a strong performance as a decent man bewildered when the system to which he's dedicated his life suddenly turns on him.

And, while the movie's main thematic consideration is deeply admirable, it would carry more weight if the movie's major black characters weren't a group of perma-sneering, voodoo-practicing whackjobs.
who, in the ultimate indignity, have their perfectly decipherable dialogue subtitled. It's just one of a series of unfortunate oversights in a movie that can feel a little slapdash at times.

But when District 9 works, it's an explosive and exciting sci-fi that heralds the arrival of a major new talent. Considering where Jackson went after his own little invading aliens movie, Bad Taste, it's hard not to get excited about where Blomkamp will be in five years' time.