Prawn and Brains

Rating: 7/10 (8 March 2010)

This movie is well worth watching (I grade on scale where the midpoint between 5 and 6). D9 includes some of the most haunting images of any movie, especially that huge and creepy spaceship looming over Johannesburg, obviously symbolizing the legacy of apartheid. I also liked the gritty realism of the prawn ghetto and the Nigerian gangsters. For the first 90 minutes, D9 is amazingly inventive, featuring surprising but believable plot twists. I loved the idea of serving the prawns eviction notices that they are asked to sign to give a threadbare legitimacy to ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately the ending gets bogged down in an interminable Transformers-type scene. Sharlto Copley as Wikus gives a witty and kinetic lead performance, but I did not find him very emotionally involving, perhaps because his character commits an appalling act early on that makes it hard to sympathize with him.