alien underclass warriors

Rating: 8/10 (7 September 2009)

Ideologically, the main attraction here is the absolute and savage refutation of the individual-versus-the-corrupt-system cliché – you know, 'Mr. Smith Goes To Washington' and all that. When the anointed leader of the alien-concentration-camp operation (Sharlto Copley as a nondescript bureaucrat, a fascinating and brave choice for an action movie protagonist) starts physically embodying the error of the us-and-them approach to the alien invasion, he is not only deposed from his seat of power, he's sent straight to the basement, where the secret labs are. Not only that, he remains an opportunistic rat bastard almost to the very end of his mutation. Still though, as an allegory it's pretty messy. If producer Peter Jackson wanted this to be his 'Intolerance' – atonement for the unga-bunga racism of his 'King Kong' – then he kind of goofed by making all the African ganglords into grinning cannibals. Rejecting gauzy sentiment is one thing, but those scenes play like Nollywood with a budget, which is the last thing the world needs On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of ideological blind spot that is all over the place in all but the very greatest of classic speculative science fiction, and THAT is the pigeonhole this movie fits best. It's not a metaphor, it's a specific imagined situation: what happens when the 'alien invasion' of yore smacks up against late capitalism's grotesquely elephantine military-industrial complex? This is a compelling rendering of that premise, even if they cheat by ditching the mock-doc conceit in the second act; it was really just a device to compress the exposition. And boy, is it ever compressed; the roller coaster moves fast enough to jump the gaps, holding steady until almost the very end, when a gratuitous bionic suit shtick provides one spectacle too many.