**SPOILER WARNING**

Johannesburg has been besieged by a giant hovering metaphor, which deposits a vast population of ‘aliens’ in a shantytown ruled by African gangsters. It’s up to an annoying pencil pusher with a silly accent to exterminate them for a fascist mega-corporation. District 9 wins a point for its clever use of CGI, creating the illusion of a much grander scope than its paltry budget would allow. Also, the cinematography vastly diminishes the image quality, allowing for less detail intensive modeling. The first act is a very badly done fake documentary, appearing to be something produced for South African Community Television; here, the crappy image works to the advantage of the film, provided it is viewed as a strange parody of apartheid, just as Alien Nation satirized mass Mexican immigration.

Rookie director Neill Blumkamp is too clever by half; the interviewed “alien experts” often must explain things that would be self-evident in their own universe, and there are several lame attempts at foreshadowing the terrible fate of its protagonist. Intriguing details, such as the prawn junkies who become strung out on canned cat food, are brought up and then never pay off; it’s all smoke and mirrors. The first 30 minutes are purely expository, setting up the human task force, led by a Jesse Ventura clone, who will ultimately become the one-dimensional source of villainy. The rest is bullshit that comes across like an imitation of the Media Breaks in Starship Troopers and the magnificent Robocop, both infinitely better offerings for the science fiction fan.

While the attempts at hard sci-fi are sometimes compelling, it doesn’t take very long until one realizes the trickery is there to distract us from the inherent lack of a plot. Nothing of interest happens until Wikus van der Merwe, the pencil pusher, encounters a plot device that inexplicably turns him into an alien. Somehow, this mysterious alien race is able to make fuel for their ship that turns humans into one of their own upon contact. By this logic, if a prawn were to come into contact with, say, gasoline, he would slowly but surely turn into a human. Maybe District 10 will deal with this subject. Lord knows District 9 has made a trainload of cash. Part of me’s happy for Peter Jackson and his glorious Wingnut Films, but another part’s mystified as to why everyone likes this increasingly ridiculous, onanistic CGI showcase. Even the great Walter Chaw was seduced by the skillful special effects, wrote a superlative review, and will doubtless place this halfhearted effort on his Top 10 list. To be fair, it’s been an underwhelming year at the movies, but raising District 9 to classic status is a premature action at best. Especially in light of just how bad the movie becomes after a certain point.

The third act undoes all the promise of the plotless first act, ditches the faux-doc format and turns into a braindead, formulaic buddy action flick, with the only bits of originality being Wikus’ utter heartlessness and cowardice in the face of the thinly developed Bad Guys. But he comes back to use his wicked new prawn tentacle to wreak havoc, in an unexplained, unearned shift of character. Even more insulting is the simplistic conflict, using an all-purpose evil conglomerate to represent all of humanity, which leaves the oppressed “prawns” as the only sympathetic characters by default. But, since the aliens are unable to use their own weaponry, Wikus is inexplicably left to free the prawns from the icy grasp of apartheid. And he does so during an action sequence that features  a robotic deus ex machina giving Wikus incredible powers, which cause the baddies to explode juicily while they empty machine guns into his metal carapace with no visible effect. And the damn thing is boring. As William Hurt once said, “How do you fuck that up!?”

Not like the painfully uncomplicated carnage would faze the Halo fans in the audience who are most assuredly jacked up on Mountain Dew. Cool alien gun make bad humans go BOOM! Whee!!!!

There could be so much more to this universe. How come the humans didn’t turn the floating ship into a military outpost or a tourist attraction? How come the world’s brightest minds were unable to reverse-engineer the aliens’ advanced weaponry? How come Wikus is able to maneuver an alien battle-mech, with digitized readouts all in Prawnese, after only 70 odd hours as a humalien? How come, for a movie that tries so damn hard to be against racism, the only black characters are evil drug lords, voodoo cultists, or bureaucratic puppets who end up in prison? How come, for a movie with such ambitious scope, does 75% of the action take place in a generic shantytown set? How come this Blumkamp fellow, whose only prior experience was directing video game cut scenes, gets to be called a “visionary” while much more capable directors continue to slave away unnoticed in non-genre fields?

District 9 is a shoo-in for Overhyped Film of the Year. Its novelty wears out before the second act is even through, and by the time the dickish “hero” begins his cathartic rampage, you’ll either be offended or asleep. It is just another paean to the power of the white man, dressed up with a much more elaborate disguise than usual. In the end, the sci-fi is so soft you could spread it on a Ritz cracker to wash down with some White Zinfandel.

Tags: aliens, apartheid, district 9, immigration, jesse ventura, neill blumkamp, peter jackson, south africa

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