District 9 Review: USA Today

DISTRICT 9
Claudia Puig
USA TODAY



District 9 proves that sci-fi thrillers don't have to be star-studded or mega-budgeted to be visually compelling and thoroughly entertaining.

With its clever faux documentary style, this is the most imaginative science-fiction movie to come along in years. The exhilarating story also features one of the most multifaceted lead characters in a genre film, played with depth and nuance by Sharlto Copley. Amid the suspense and heart-pumping action sequences, there is a heartfelt commentary on xenophobia, corporate greed and apartheid.

The title refers to the makeshift home in South Africa to which more than a million aliens have been consigned since coming to Earth two decades earlier. Their hulking mother ship hovered over Johannesburg for months before a race of aliens emerged. Because the aliens resemble large, walking crustaceans with their leggy, striated bodies and long feelers, people began to refer to them derogatorily as "prawns."

They have none of the wide-eyed innocence of E.T.'s friendly title character or the gentle other-worldliness of the visitors from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. People quite credibly react with fear and loathing.

When we meet Wikus van der Merwe (Copley), he seems an officious and rather dunderheaded civil servant, at times resembling The Office's Michael Scott. He works for a huge corporation called Multi-National United (MNU) and is married to Tania (Vanessa Haywood), the daughter of a company honcho.

Wikus is assigned to head the massive eviction of aliens from District 9, during which he contracts a virus that changes his DNA. He is soon a wanted man. MNU wants him for reasons pertaining to alien technology, as do predatory Nigerian gangsters. Wikus evolves from smug pencil-pusher to terrorized victim to compassionate hero in a natural, believable way.

The proceedings are not always easy to watch. The handheld camerawork may put people off, and the action can be gory, with humans mistreating the aliens in myriad ways and weaponry that vaporizes its victims.

Setting the film in and around Johannesburg, where skyscrapers tower over pockets of astonishing squalor, makes the scenario more fascinating. Vividly immersing audiences in the gritty, crime-ridden conditions in which the aliens are forced to live, first-time director Neill Blomkamp inspires reflection on poverty, ignorance and ostracism without resorting to preachiness.

Blomkamp (championed by Lord of the Rings' Peter Jackson, who served as producer) does more than offer a spectacularly tense, unconventional and riveting adventure. This alien saga is deeply imbued with humanity.

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