District 9 is a rip snorting, sci-fi oddity that starts promisingly on uncharted grounds, but halfway through decides to travel down the road of overblown action spectacle.

Director Neill Blomkamp, with the financing of Peter Jackson, builds his debut on the subtext of apartheid and segregation.

And though he advances steadily over half the running time, the originality loses steam, and District 9 devolves into cliché, gore splattered free-for-all.

 The Plot

28 years ago, a ship filled with aliens stalled out over Johannesburg. The malnourished passengers were taken from the ship, given aid, and took up resident in the slum known as District 9. Fast forward to present day, and its hell on earth.

Nigerian gangs have taken advantage of the aliens’ love for cat food, and use it as a bartering tool for biological weaponry. They also have made a killing in the interspecies prostitution market. Not to mention the aliens (known by the racial epitaph “Prawn”, meaning bottom feeder) enjoy such destructive habits as chewing on tires and derailing trains.

Multi-National United, the world’s leading weapon manufacturer, is contracted out to begin the large scale extraction of the Prawns to District 10, an eerie settlement that gives off a concentration camp vibe. In charge of the operation is the precocious nerd Wickus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), who goes out and handles the eviction notices Prawn by Prawn. In one of the shacks Wickus discovers an alien canister that sprays him with a nausea inducing mist. Shortly after Wickus begins vomiting black goo. Then things get really weird.

The Good

The concept of how humanity would handle alien immigration is an always intriguing one. Blomkamp’s approach is original and clever, a hard find in a summer multiplex. Blomkamp shifts seamlessly (for the most part) from faux documentary interviews to actual footage, complete with stylish touches such as rifle mounted cameras.

The effects are excellent considering the film’s 30 million dollar budget, and it’s a tribute to Blomkamp’s directing ability that we care so much for the two alien leads, Chris and his son C.J. Copley’s performance is one of the more interesting parts of District 9. His character segues frequently between sympathetic and heartless, a decision that Blomkamp shouldn’t be knocked for. After all, it takes guts to make your lead character unlikeable, and then try to redeem him in the eyes of the audience.

Even Copley falters though in the later scenes, but that is due mostly to the script he is working with, which brings me to…

The Bad

If the first half of District 9 had the makings of greatness, its lackluster second half seals its fate as slightly above average. The social criticisms and political subtext aren’t continued any further, and the movie settles for explosions and shoot-outs.

Don’t get me wrong, District 9 has some of 2009’s best death scenes. The sight of a missile lodging itself in a man’s head, not detonating right away, then exploding, creating a spray of blood and brains that reaches the ceiling is almost worth the price of admission by itself.

The problem is it doesn’t mesh with the dramatic and nuanced set up we’ve just been given.

Blomkamp also throws in every known action movie cliché, from the slow motion walk away from flaming wreckage, to the standard “We stick together!” buddy speeches. These choices probably wouldn’t have irked me as much had District 9 not been so original in the first place, but since it is, the scenes seem even more contrived. It’s almost as if Blomkamp settled for less.

Aside from Copley’s mostly good performance, the rest of the acting is a bit stale. Wickus’ boss is also his father in law, and they’ve got pretty much the same relationship that Desmond Hume has with Charles Widmore on Lost. That is to say they share a deep dislike for each other, their only link being their love for Tania (Vanessa Haywood), a rather one note character, who spends most of the run time crying or on the verge of tears.

Perhaps my biggest gripe is with the mercenary leader Koobus (David James). At his introduction, he has the typical argument with Wickus over acceptable amounts of force that can be used with the Prawns. Of course Koobus defends his men’s method and suggests Wickus stick to what he knows: administrative duties. Despite this, I had hope that Blomkamp would throw some kind of unexpected ethos into the character. Surely in a film so brazenly original, Koobus wouldn’t go the way of your typical kill for fun, work for the highest bidder commando.

I was mistaken. Koobus fits the description better than a villain from a Schwarzenegger movie. Later in the movie, he actually states that he loves his job because killing the Prawn is so much fun. I wanted Koobus to die, not because he was an effective baddie, but because whenever he was onscreen it felt like a Saturday night SyFy movie.

The dialogue also goes the way of the plot in the second half, an unfortunate development that hinders even Copley’s performance.

Verdict

District 9 is best described as uneven. A promising start gives way to an ending that proves at times monotonous, at other times glaringly unoriginal. Blomkamp’s deconstruction of race relations is furthered to a point, and then dropped for poorly written gore. While some scenes of carnage are awesome, most are repetitive. And just as you get past a tired action sequence to something redeemable, Blomkamp wheels us around to another series of bloody dismemberments. This would be fine if Blomkamp had something to say with these scenes, or if he wasn’t trying to make a statement with the first hour of the film.

But by that point in the film, all Blomkamp is trying to do is illicit an “Oh sweet!” from the audience with something we’ve seen too many times before. I didn’t dislike the film, but I left disappointed in what it could have been. Blomkamp decided to play it safe with his second half, and ended up short changing his audience as a result.

Emovieguide Rating: 6 out of 10

 Reviewed by Stephen Morrison

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