Just because it's original sci-fi doesn't make it great.

Rating: 3/10 (20 August 2009)

While 'District 9" is a very original take on the "visitors from another planet" idea, when you scrape off that veneer, you will just find another pile of processed pulp. To make it more "real", the movie employs a documentary style. While effective in creating that environment, it then drifts into a typical "Hollywood" plot structure, that being the standard "two mismatched guys on the run" story (Midnight Run, Fled). Is just that this time, they're literally from different worlds.
I didn't buy in. Too many implausibilities, starting with how the Big Bad Villain, a private weapons company, is the only group that has access to the aliens. C'mon, it would be some kind of international coalition, okay? The Big Message points (racism) would still come through. Instead, the movie gets weighted down with very clichéd plot devices such as the buddy chase, the McGuffin (the power source twenty years in the making), and even a moppet-like child prawn. There are plenty more, and it became annoying after a while – although the action was fun.
The fact that it's current rank as of August 20 is the same as Casablanca's is a farce. There's a saying: "You don't sell the steak, you sell the sizzle". Fanboys who rank this movie so high are too often caught up in the sizzle, and barely notice that the steak is another piece of pulp cranked out by the Hollywood meat grinder.
I give a three: five stars for being engaging, but overall mediocre and annoyingly clichéd; minus two for the big disappointment that is.