21st Century cinema heaven!

Rating: 9/10 (10 September 2009)

Last night died and went to cinema heaven – District 9 is a work of absolute genius and one of the most enjoyable films I have ever seen. An unprecedented and totally successful fusion of action, intelligence and humour – stunningly realised. If you don't get a kick out of this film then there's probably something seriously wrong with you.
I'm just staggered at how well the film makers managed the fuse a variety of styles into a coherent (and enjoyable!) whole. Funnier than most comedies, smarter than most art-house pics, and the action and effects speak for themselves. Something that seems to be lost in the post as far as praise for this film goes is the incredible performance by Sharlto Copley – just like the film itself he managed to nail an entire spectrum of emotions, that by most conventions, would never even appear in the same movie. His character was grey-scale interesting and multi-layered enough to keep you interested in every decision he made.
The first 20 minutes or so were just brilliant satire, this was followed by a slight lull before the film kicked in to an emotion-led edge-of- the-seat adrenaline rush. I was literally on the edge of my seat for the entire second hour – something I haven't experienced watching a film for a long long time.
There were a few problems of course – mainly in some of the supporting acting – the actors playing both the chief villains (the father-in-law and the merc) were poor, as was the actress playing the wife. A bit more care in casting would have worked to make the film near perfect in my eyes. Most other supporting actors were great and special mention should go to the guy who played the main 'documentary' talking head narrator – the best fake expert commentary acting I've ever seen – and believe me it's pretty hard to get that done well.
Yes there were 'plot-holes' but the whole world was so well realised that it didn't seem to even matter (or you just accepted that you weren't in full possession of the facts)
This film made me genuinely excited about cinema again – and I can't wait to see what Blomkamp does next.