NOT one of the greatest Sci Fi films ever!!

Rating: 6/10 (18 August 2009)

This is not a negative review of the film. Instead, it is a clarification of why I think those fanboys who rank this movie up there with Blade Runner and Children of Men must have very short memories.
The first half of the movie is basically throwaway. Its this mockumentary that supposedly frames the plight of the prawns into some kind of relevance. But its really just a lot of back story. The movie does nothing more for the morays of apartheid, refugee status, or whatever social commentary its trying to make beyond the assortment of interviews meant to set up the second half of the story. It's just a cute premise that serves as backstory for the "real" movie.
The "real" movie starts the moment Wikus finds the tube of liquid and gets infected. The camera calms down and the "documentary" camera gets replaced by a neutral camera and cinematic action style we're all familiar with. The shift in perspective is disconcerting. What POV are we really seeing? It's like a movie within the movie.
The movie is oddly dispassionate and unemotional. While the CG character animation is top notch, I never cared for the prawns, for the most part they seemed like a bunch of random bugs running away and on a rampage and only the father and son prawns were midly sympathetic. There was no villain I really hated - the MNU mercenaries were just nameless thugs and the head of MNU / the father was never much of a character. I loved no characters either. I liked the choice for Wikus - Sharlto Copley - hes an atypical hero, uncaring, selfish, nerdy bureaucratic type. He's different enough to be interesting but I can't say I rooted much for him or loved the guy - except at the very end of the movie when he has a change of heart and has his orgasmic heroic battle like every good action hero must do. His wife seemed hardly a character at all so his empathy with and from her had little weight.
Lots of stuff made no sense. Why did the prawns give up all their weapons? For cat food? Why didn't they just take what they wanted? Why did the command center drop down from the ship when it was such a pain to get it back up again? It was never clear at what point they were at with some/most/all prawns getting moved to the new concentration camp.
Overall it lacked the thematic unity of great science fiction like "Children of Men" or "2001", movies where I felt deeply involved with the characters. I can't believe some fans and reviews put it in that league.
The mockumentary reminded me of independent and student films like "American Zombies" and others of that genre. But the devolution of the movie into a well done but typical action sci fi flick seems to give the movie a schizo personality, with competing tonalities.
Camera work, while not Cloverfield shaky, was kind of wonkishly bad video shaky and can make you sick (as it did my date).
I was mildy entertained by the film, but my review is in response to the surprising laudations given to it by the reviewers and fans. I wonder who wrote those and why?? Possibly one of the most audacious SciFi films of the summer, but it lacks the thought and conviction for it to be anything more.