'District 9' Tackles Bigotry and Racism with a Sci-Fi Twist by Movie Reviewers on Creators.com

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'District 9' Tackles Bigotry and Racism with a Sci-Fi Twist

It's hard out here for a prawn. Er, excuse my ethnic slur — I mean "alien." It's easy to slip into the old habits ever since the praw ... that is, aliens (sorry!) arrived on Earth 20 years ago. We take them for granted now that they've been rounded up and put into camps, safely behind walls and barbed wire — all 1.8 million of them. At last, no more nonhuman loitering. What did these animals expect, to just show up and be naturalized as citizens?

The above bigotry was brought to you by "District 9," a mockumentary-cum-action-film that wears its political agenda on its claw sleeve. Expanding on the concept of his short film "Alive in Joburg," director Neill Blomkamp (and co-writer Terri Tatchell) have cleverly and semi-jokingly merged a vision of apartheid South Africa (and by extension, the separatism in Gaza, Sri Lanka and elsewhere) with the science-fictions of "War of the Worlds," "Independence Day" and "Alien Nation."

Set mostly in a dusty Johannesburg shantytown, "District 9" fuses CGI effects with a hand-held documentary approach similar to "Cloverfield," its fantastical story events unfolding as if part of a mundane chronicle. We're following the blandly chipper Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a low-level bureaucrat for the Department of Alien Affairs, as a private military firm escorts him into the shantytown, where Van De Merwe goes door-to-door with a clipboard, evicting prawns ... Yeesh, there I go again. Aliens.

So what are these aliens? They're bipedal, with powerful arms as well as mysterious thorny abdominal appendages. They speak in a guttural series of grunts and clicks (pointedly linking to the sounds of South Africa's Xhosa language), and have the sort of amphibious faces you might find playing bassoon in a "Star Wars" cantina. They love cat food — leaving them susceptible to exploitation by Nigerian Cat Food Scams — but are they lovable?

At first glance, no. Most of the aliens display the sorts of bad behavior (alien-insect cockfighting, tire eating, gang graffiti) often associated with the ignorant and impoverished.

Is this the end result of having no opportunities, or the reason why opportunities should be denied? Blomkamp's vision of racism opens several cans of wormy cat food, and reminded me a lot of "Starship Troopers" — a deeply subversive film that hints its alien/bug villains might be the victims of humankind's propaganda-fed fascism. Eventually, Van De Merwe has a similar insight — after he meets an alien who wears the same type of dweeby vest he does.

"District 9" has ambitions beyond political allegory, and eventually morphs into a combination of horror (a character finds himself grotesquely mutating a la Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"), fugitive-on-the-run suspense, and finally "Aliens"/"Iron Man" robot-suit action. "District 9's" scenario would make for the Best First-Person Shooter Videogame Ever (the DNA-based weapons are right out of "Quake"), with ray guns that make bodies explode like balloons filled with cherry-pie filling. It makes sense that producer Peter Jackson has enlisted Blomkamp to helm the upcoming "Halo" movie — he's got a knack for playful CGI integration.

Too bad "District 9" can't quite fulfill the promise of its visual spectacle and innovative concept: It's very good when you want it to be great. As an unlikely action hero who grows morally, newcomer Copley (who has a bit of a Ralph Fiennes look) doesn't deliver the star performance the role needs to bust through the dull trappings of docu-realism. The movie could use a dash more personality, and Van De Merwe's interactions with his wife (Vanessa Haywood) are especially unconvincing. Blomkamp also falls prey to a few too many action tropes: ruthless villains who become passive at convenient moments, characters with the impeccable fortune to outrun bullets, etc.

That said, "District 9" makes a dynamic debut from a promising and politically savvy South African filmmaker. With apologies to my favorite film from that country, call it "Chariots of the Gods Must Be Crazy."

"District 9." Rated: R. Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes. 3 stars.

To find out more about Zachary Woodruff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.