District 9

Released: 2009
MPAA rating: R
Run time: 1:52

"District 9" is a very thinly-veiled metaphor for apartheid.  Setting the movie in a shanty-town in South Africa sort of makes that point extremely obvious.  The premise is that aliens live her on Earth and have been for quite some time.  However, they are confined to a small area outside Johannesburg, where their ship hovers above.  They are unable to leave as the ship has no fuel and their designated district is over-run with filth and garbage.  As a solution (at least from the human perspective), it is decided that the aliens should be evicted and relocated to another area.  The relocation effort is being led by Wikus Van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), who almost enjoys his work too much, at least until events find him being very sympathetic to the aliens cause.  Copley does a great job morphing from a comedic role into some sort of bad-ass action hero.  The movie itself starts of as a pseudo-documentary but eventually moves into being a straight-ahead movie.  The alien effects are completely believable as every alien you see (known as the "prawns") look completely real.  In scenes with humans, there is no drop-off in quality to take you out of the movie.  The movie was very entertaining for the most part, if somewhat slow to start. The acting was very good and the movie is set in modern times, not the future, which makes it feel that much more authentic.  While I don't think this deserved an Oscar nomination for Best Picture (10 films is just too many), this is a very good film.  Despite being a metaphor for apartheid, you never really feel the politics beaten into your head.

Grade: B

Trailer: