Director Neill Blomkamp makes great use of the mock-reality video trend to tell his story of alien apartheid in Southern Africa. Cobbling together faux documentary, news and surveillance footage helps hide the seams between a depressing reality and the otherworldly creatures trapped in its slums. The multi-source narrative also adds doubt to the questionable propaganda and agenda of the supposed human good guys. Blomkamp thankfully abstains from the shaky-cam treatment that induced motion sickness in audiences for Rec and Cloverfield. But relying so heavily on first-person viewpoints somewhat undermines the more dazzling, special effects laden sequences in the shift to an omniscient perspective.

Luckily the effects aren’t the point, though there’s plenty of them. Focusing much of the time on the character development of a meek and menial bureaucratic drone is a risky move for a summer sci-fi action flick. Even riskier is making the hero so flippantly racist. It pays off in elevating the otherwise conventional third act beyond typical chases and stuff blowing up. Somehow always likable in a naïve Borat way, the protagonist earns our sympathy and respect through a gradual and painful appreciation for the extraterrestrials’ plight. Punctuating his emotional journey with a physical transformation worthy of David Cronenberg’s The Fly doesn’t hurt (audiences, anyway).

District 9 is anything but subtle in its ethnic and tribal stereotypes. The voodoo worshipping gang leader and his cackling thugs would seem broadly drawn in any film. Like the casual camera treatment they serve to push the fantastic creatures and futuristic technology to the background. Even a robot exoskeleton leaping through the frame exchanging heavy artillery is never for the sake of spectacle like Transformers. Each mechanical limp and hesitation resonates a human connection. The alien Prawns are more than cartoon monsters, they have believable motivations and dare I suggest souls. I left the theater thinking more about their personal struggles than their tentacles.

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