Exceptional movie, smart directing and great acting

Rating: 8/10 (29 August 2009)

Really well put together movie, unexpectedly well acted, directed and filmed. A kind of "Alien Nation" but updated with great CGI, and a truly "earthy" feel to it, a la "Alien". I think its well worth seeing.
I would have given this a 10, but there was one massive plot flaw that undermined much of the motive force of the plot. Simply put, why the hell didn't the aliens use their weapons?????? They clearly knew how powerful they were, in this vein, there was something incomplete about the movie, the super precious liquid was made in a grungy shack and hidden carelessly by these clearly very smart aliens. Such inconsistency is fine is a typically lousy summer movie, but this movie is better than that. I get the fact that this was inexpensively made and solving the plot for a more nuanced "weapons" situation would have made this a better movie. To be clear, typically oppressed populations do not have access to weapons of this caliber, if they did, they wouldn't be oppressed. For example, if the Palestinians had a real military, real power, there wouldn't be an Israeli occupation, there might be a real war, but it wouldn't essentially be a war of prison guards against prisoners. Hezbollah, no matter what one thinks of them, had real weapons and backed Israel down. Although, this seems off topic for the movie, the movie is actually trying to say something foundational about humans. I think it mostly works at this level, but the plot simply blows up regarding power.