Vacuous misanthropy

Rating: 6/10 (14 November 2009)

This could have been a subtle and thought-provoking portrayal of the dark sides of mankind – instead it presents its message as wet defecation spurting out all over the place in an attempt at social and political satire. The film, which technically is a masterpiece, could have shown us how we as humans meet the unknown with fear and prejudice. How the single individual may appear as devoid of malice, while it as a part of a group might contribute to incomprehensible evil. Instead the film chooses to present the humanity as some sort of a Hollywood-esque caricature of Nazi-Germany. In this world, evil and egoism – in its simplest meaning – are the prime force of human actions, while the aliens on the other hand, annoyingly anthropomorphistic, seem like simple and unselfish individuals. District 9 fails to point out what's interesting about human evil – the fact that it doesn't emerge from the individual consciousness, but from the collective unconsciousness.
Neill Blomkamp is a hair's-breadth from the head of the nail – but misses and hits his thumb so hard that it fractures in at least two places. The film is entertaining in its technical flawlessness, but fails on a deeper level, and ends up as vacuous and naive misanthropy.