Aliens Among Us

Today, I checked out the new sci-fi/action movie District 9, the relatively inexpensive movie made almost entirely by (and starring) unknowns, that comes off looking just as lavish as summer blockbusters that cost ten times as much to make.

If you've heard anything at all about the movie (and I think it would have been hard not to), then you know that the real hallmark of it is that it's "smart science fiction." It doesn't just use the trappings of aliens or what-not to thrill the senses, it uses them as an allegory to make a point. The story is set deliberately in Johannesburg, South Africa (a place noted for racial tensions), and surrounds a group of aliens stranded on Earth and rounded up into a ghetto to live separate-but-equal from the humans of the city.

Well, actually, the story is about a man whose job it is to relocate the aliens to a new holding area, and an unfortunate mishap that befalls him on the job. That other business is backstory, and for good or bad is actually the most compelling thing about the movie.

The movie itself is sort of a strange brew of The Fly and Enemy Mine that isn't nearly as original as the allegory. It entertains most of the time, but lags in a few places. When you're done thinking about the literal racism in this film and how it reflects on reality, you then start thinking about a handful of plot points in the final act that just don't quite might sense.

The presentation of the film is rather impressive, with great visual effects (aided by motion capture tehcnology). But it's also a bit inconsistent. For the most part, the film tries to be a fake documentary, a sort of Cloverfield or Quarantine that uses all manner of "found footage" from security cameras to a fictional film crew. But it doesn't stay within this perspective. By the second act, things are alternating back and forth between the documentary approach and standard filmmaking, at times because the narrative can no longer be pushed forward as well with the "film crew" conceit, and at times for what appear to be completely arbitrary reasons. By the third act, the documentary approach is abandoned almost entirely.

Still, though I found the execution to be flawed, the core idea here is really strong. And everybody I went to see the film with seemed to like it better than I did, so this seems like a safe recommendation for all of you. I myself rate it a B-.