Attempted allegory fails to help a formula buddy film

Rating: 3/10 (16 August 2009)

In short: A sci-fi buddy flick with more repulsive gore than science.
The buddies here are a kevlar-vested bureaucrat and a bolero-vested "prawn" or alien. Most buddy movies have the buddies start as enemies and become friends, and "District 9" follows that formula. Think "48 Hours," if Eddie Murphy was a prawn instead of Nick Nolte's pawn.
A few clever ideas stand out (not including the failed attempt at cinema verite), especially the fact that the aliens have already been on Earth for 20 years when the movie begins, which recognizes that, as with most invasions, the problem is the aftermath. (How long have we been occupying Iraq now? 6 years?). Their spacecraft appears derelict, just hovering over Johannesburg—a location that delivers the obvious metaphor: District 9, the enclosed alien encampment, is like a bantustan from the era of apartheid.
The best plot ideas have to do with alien weaponry. The prawns have arms which only they can use—only their DNA works on the trigger. Not bad, right? Even better is the acknowledgment that we humans are more interested in finding out a way to use those weapons than we are in any kind of lasting détente with the aliens-- let alone the fact that humans apparently have zero interest in where the aliens came from, why they're here, details of their obviously superior technology, etc., etc., etc.
To top it all off, there's no ending. Instead, we're left with characters' promises that there will be retribution and salvation in the future. Is "District 10" already in the works? I hope not.