Terrific action film; failed allegory

Rating: 8/10 (13 August 2013)

Much like Children of Men, the real subject of this film is the diaspora of émigrés from third world countries around the world who are unwelcome in the first world countries spanning the North Atlantic and Europe they are penetrating.
With his second major film, it's clear that political allegory (District 9's real subject is South Africa's apartheid) is the basis of Blomkamp's SciFi stories. Unlike District 9, this film stumbles in presenting its allegory coherently, therefore, some viewers during the screening I attended laughably seemed to think the story is all about Obamacare.
Blomkamp is a South African émigré living in Canada, which has had universal health care for 50 years, one of the magnets drawing immigrants to it from less developed countries. Canada also has very strict immigration and naturalization policies (more so than the US), which some in Canada have begun to question. But the situation depicted in the film could just as well be Europe, which also has a recent tradition of universal health care and feels itself under siege by third world immigrants. Meanwhile, the US continues to struggle unsuccessfully with its own issue of undocumented immigrants. These are the underpinnings of the film's story line, set in LA probably as a bow to US financing and to lend credibility to its American leads.
Nevertheless, I found it wildly entertaining and was on the edge of my seat. I was also pleased to see Sharlto Copley on screen again. He was simply terrific in District 9. I keep expecting him to become a big international star once he gets to play a contemporary man in an A-list film.