A film that never reached its potential

Rating: 6/10 (6 September 2009)

I am going to have to disagree with the rave reviews that I have been reading. The first twenty minutes of the film, seen largely though the eyes of the media coverage, sets up something wonderfully original. It is the story of first contact that happened by accident, leaving the human world, particularly Johannesburg, faced with a humanitarian crisis. It shows corporations taking control of the shelters for the Alien populations and exploiting them, it shows the conflict that comes from different cultures clashing and it shows how callus humanity can be. Then there is a twist early in the film and from that point forward the film is about showing the audience one futuristic way of killing people after another that does include a friendship between a human and an alien but is nothing we haven't seen before. From this point onwards almost every crossroad where the story could either get lost in a Hitchcockien riddle surrounded by suspense or explode a person with a gun so that blood hits the camera, it takes option two. Although it does come to a worthy conclusion I can't help but feel that there were forty-five minute to an hour of killing people with lightning guns and other futuristic weapons, while awesome in an overly gritty kind of way, could have been better spent on the promised, "Many secrets in District Nine," while still providing a violent, action packed thrill for the audience.
The film is very realistic until you look closely at certain things. I will give one example: cat food is like drugs to the aliens. While this is a funny scene there is nothing in cat food that isn't someplace else and the chemical components of cat foods very as much as from one cat food to another as from cat food to dog food but dog food is not dealt like drugs. The fact that I was thinking about the chemical components of cat food during this film says that there is something a little wrong with me, but it also says something about the film.
On a positive note both the rookie director and the rookie star did phenomenal jobs for their first time out and we should all be watching to see where they go from here. The story of the film got lost in mostly senseless violence but Blomkamp's direction, coupled with great production values, keeps the film interesting. It is a great conversation starter and worth a viewing if you don't mind gore but is not at the level of greatness it has been proscribed.