MOVIE: DISTRICT 9
South African director Neill Blomkamp astounds us with a concept so original, a subtext so thrilling, and an ending so clever that the film’s publicist had to beg reviewers, “Please, no spoilers.” Fair enough. Now just imagine a million aliens arriving on Earth in a derelict spaceship. They are benign, more than that, totally helpless, and as producer, NZ’s Peter Jackson explains, “they can’t even feed themselves and have no particular desire to do anything. They come to Johannesburg, of all places, and no one knows what to to do, so they end up in a township similar to Soweto.” The solution, twenty years after, “the prawns” (slang for the actually quite human aliens) first settled, is told in part-mockumentary, part comedy and part splatter-action sci-fi. It is compulsory viewing. No excuses. (RE)
