Sci-fic renovated and that's entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (16 March 2011)

A brilliant sci-fic movie. Something that makes the genre proud, but explores new ideas and narrative, and offers a story that is clever, thrilling and entertaining. It had to be a non-Hollywood director, a South African (and some "Kiwis" too) to come up with such a good story and cast.
The narrative of the film is great as the film is presented as a documentary that tells the story of the leading character in the past, with the colors and realistic use of the camera of documentaries, but still developing a fictional story that is presented as real. The use of the faded ocher colors it helps to convey realism and past tense, and gives credibility to the whole setting. This has been done before but not, as far as I know, for a sci-fic story.
The main character is superbly played by an unknown (at least to me) Shartlo Copley, who has has done a tremendous job playing with credibility a demanding character that goes from being a naive a little bit jerky soft-mannered public officer to an action fighter.
If you want stunning star special effects this is not your movie. This is a movie in which those effects are powerfully developed but subtly and realistically integrated in the story, which is what matters here. The aliens are greatly designed, especially their language, character, social structure and biology, points that are all relevant to the story, never self-indulgent.
The director has done a super-job in directing a movie that could have been cheesy or comic (in the bad sense) irrelevant and unsubstantial, but is nothing of that. We cannot forget Peter Jackson's production and the creative team in New Zealand either, who deserve a great praise for supporting such a great project!
My main problem with the movie was the setting, the fact that the spaceship stops over South Africa and the relationship that the locals establish with the newly arrived. Don't take me wrong, I think it is great that a country that is not the USA or an Anglo-Saxon country is chosen as a set of a movie; that's great! It is also true that the setting is perfect to explain many of the social reactions that we see happening in the story. My concern has to do with the fact that the movie, involuntary demonizes South African society and black people in general, and Nigerians in particular, who are portrayed as a despicable subhuman group. All of this was unnecessary, truly. Imagine how much verosimilar the storyline would have been if the setting was an invented country in which the social groups are not from a certain known country, just humans. Unintentionally, the script has done something that I usually hate in Hollywood movies - that is, that the bad guys are most of the time black, dark color and/o foreigners from non Anglo-Saxon societies and the hero a white man.
The personal relationship between the leading human and alien characters vaguely reminded me of the one shown in "Enemy Mine", although both movies are quite different in story and narrative.
I loved the last scene of the movie, really tender and full of hope. I would say that the movie was left open to a sequel, which I would definitely welcome.
Sci-fic fans will love the movie, and lovers of good movies in general, too.