A worthy entry into the sci-fi genre

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2009)

I was tempted to give this a 9 only because I was a bit tired when I watched it so I'm not sure if I fully appreciated it, but 8 is a good, safe score since I did enjoy the film.
I'm a huge sci-fi buff (books, movies, you name it) and these days good movies in this genre are few and far between. Luckily this one was pretty good and was original enough that it felt fresh in comparison to what's already been done.
This movie is yet another example of how, in my opinion, if you want the audience to buy in to what's going on on the screen then lesser known actors is the way to go. Most movies don't abide by this because well, they want to make as much money as possible. Too bad most movie-goers feed this theory because most of the time is just distracts from the story. District 9 doesn't have this problem though. The acting is solid all around and the focus is where it should be.
I can't say enough about the effects. They're about as close as you can get to having real aliens walking around (whatever that looks like, but you get the point). So many movies that have been released before AND after this one had distracting, disappointing CGI. Thankfully this isn't the case here. The graphics themselves have unbelievable textures and reflect light sources as accurately as possible.
There's not a whole lot wrong with this movie. There's certainly some valid nitpicks as other as have pointed out, but nothing you're not willing to let go in my opinion. That speaks a lot to how effective everything else is. Sure you can quibble about details surrounding the aliens' technology and whatnot, but come on. The smallest bit of suspension of disbelief goes a long way. If you want to see a sci-fi movie that really has issues go rent Terminator: Salvation. You'll probably appreciate this movie a lot more.
The only thing I didn't care for was that I thought the ending kind of lost the focus of the movie somewhat. It's basically a big long action sequence with less emotion than I had hoped for. I think if they let the story carry the ending and inject action only where necessary it would have been tighter.
Overall, I'll still take my Blade Runner, Star Wars, Terminator 2, etc. over this movie any day, but it's still very good and probably worth more than one viewing if you're into science fiction.