A great alien movie since Alien (1979)

Rating: 9/10 (16 September 2009)

I've never seen so many critic films being produced and consumed by the masses as in the last few years. Movies that disseminate political and social issues disguised as action, fantasy or fiction. It's the old story, using allegories and metaphors the audience captures the idea without being blocked by their own prejudices. Disctrict 9 (2009), Watchmen (2009), Cloverfield (2008), V For Vendetta (2005), 28 Days Later (2002), 28 Weeks Later (2007), X-Men (2000)... are some of the last examples of important subjects discussed and disguised into pure entertainment. That's really clever.
Disctrict 9 is pure entertainment, but also a very different way to feel how humans can be so mean and cruel. The subject here is not about aliens or the probability of any invasion (even if it can also be a probability), but yes to discuss what's the worst of us. For sure the movie is a clear reference to what happened in South Africa in late 40's and what is called Apartheid, but just replacing black people for aliens. But if you replace again aliens for any kind of people or community, the main subject would not change in any way comparing to all that's happening and ever happened around the world. That's why this movie can be entertaining, but also a very interesting way to discuss current matters.
The movie itself takes the primal idea of movies such The Blair Witch (1999), REC (2007) and Cloverfield (2008), and also from games like Halo and Half Life. Like those movie references, there're no familiar faces or big names in it, which pumps the reality feeling of the events since everybody is unknown as in fact it would be in reality. There are some moments that you just can't understand why things are happening that way, for example, when Wikus uses the robot armor. That's nonsense, but it doesn't mess with entire movie or the rest of the idea.
District 9, above it all, is a great alien movie that I haven't seen since Alien. Cloverfield is also very interesting, but District 9 intensifies the idea and gives you another point of view of things.