Beyond superficiality

Rating: 9/10 (22 September 2010)

Whether intentionally or by accident the creators of this movie concocted one of the most original and unorthodox sci-fi movies in the recent history. It is not perfect but it is certainly not conventional in typical Hollywood sense.
This is the movie where I think you can find a lot of things to think about, besides the wrapper of explosions, gore, aliens and space ships.
But let's dispense first with the superficial. The special effects in this movie are astounding in their realism and relevance. The movie doesn't feel overburdened with them nor do they take the priority over the plot of the movie. Unlike in many modern movies, the special effects here seem to be seamless with the rest of the movie and help deliver it's punch ever more successfully (Avatar comes to the mind where my feelings are completely the opposite - brainless assemblage of special effects)
Here are some things and ideas that I think District 9 raises and leaves the viewer to think about (and perhaps this will answer some of their criticisms of the movie)
1) We as humans anywhere on this planet are inherently racist and suspicious of anybody acting or looking differently than we are no matter what our race is or nationality. This quality is perhaps a part of our animal nature and transcends our race origins. There is a large history of white colonialism and apartheid, however it is a mistake not to see that any groups of people in power, majority or any significant numbers have inherent prejudices toward other groups that are somehow different from them. We don't have to go very far in history or geography for an example: the Rwanda genocide.
2) Why aliens became a subjugated formless mass or what separates the civilized advanced society from the mass of people simply fulfilling their base desires? We live in an advanced society filled with computers, advanced metallurgy, advanced chemical processing, space shuttles and particle colliders. But take a hundred individuals off the street and how many know how to and where to find, mine and process ore, how to synthesize various chemical compounds, how to create semiconductors, perform integration or differentiation or recite a table of chemical elements. The fact is it took a humongous amount of time of trial and error and a few geniuses to propel our understanding of the world. Where would we be without Newton, Gauss, Copernicus, Archimedes, Enstein, Darwin, Tesla and etc.
3) Why sometimes a superior mass of people cannot/doesn't rebel against it's oppressors? Well we don't have to travel very far in history to see such examples: Holocaust, various terrorist hostage situations where a handful of terrorists can command a huge number of people.
But the movie is not just the ideas, it is also filled with truthfully delivered drama of the main hero struggle to first fall in-line and do his job, then with his egotistic desire to save himself and any cost and finally liberating himself for own sacrifice to help the suffering creatures.