Great, meaningful Sci-fi

Rating: 10/10 (13 September 2009)

District 9 was a surprise hit in the American box-office, and it is a excellent example that people are willing to pay for quality. Here is a sci-fi film with a modest budget from South Africa, with only a big name producer and an excellent vile market campaign.
Set in an alternative world, an alien space ship has been hovering over Johannesburg for over 20 years. They was a lost, malnutrited alien race, and a 'humanitarian' crisis happened. The South African government isolated the aliens, derogatorily known as the 'prawns', into a crime ridden slum in the centre of the city, known as District 9. District 9 becomes an embarrassment for South Africa, and the government, using a private agency, plan to evict the aliens to a camp outside the city, so they are out of sight. Bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is assigned the mission to evict the aliens. But as he tries to do this he becomes inflected with a strange fluid and he himself ends up as a science experiment. Wikus ends up becoming a fugitive, and ends up hiding in District 9. He forms an alliance with an alien called Christopher and both have to help each other out.
This is a very ambitious film, especially for a first time director, Neill Blomkamp. It is clear that Peter Jackson had a influence in this film. Neill Blomkamp was able to sci-fi into a metaphor and a message about a number of themes. An obvious theme is apartheid because of the collective affect on South Africa and Neill Blomkamp's personal experience. It shows have a group end up being separated and end up becoming second-class citizens. They is also the theme of immigration and xenophobia, two issues that are affect South Africa as a moment. A recent poll show sadly that South African are on of the most xenophobic people in the world, and Blomkamp tries to show it in this film. Another theme is the idea of forced removal and preventing people being seen. This happened in South Africa, and has happened in other nations like China. As well as these major themes, they are other ideas explored like organised crime, drug addiction, illegal experimentation, superstition and traditional African witchcraft, the evils of the weapons industry and late-nineteenth century style American immigration (i.e. Ellis Island style treatment).
They is a strong story, with Wikus being a reluctant hero and seeing the error of his ways. They is an emotional story, about the transformation to Wikus, both physically and mentally. They is also a good emotional story involving his friendship with Christopher and the father and son relationship with the film. I actually felt for them. There is a excellent, gory sci-fi action in this film and the special effects are pretty good for a film with a $30 Million budget. Blomkamp shows his background in computer graphics. The aliens themselves where designed very well, looking like bugs, but having very emotive eyes: it was very effective. The film is shown both as a faux documentary and as a standard movie, both style working very well. The film reminded me of the excellent Cloverfield. Blomkamp adds elements of dark comedy to his film which is enjoyable and helps break the tension of the film. He can do serious and light-hearted.
A brilliant film ***** of *****