More than being well made, “District 9″ is incredibly well conceived. Like the alien protagonist and his pint sized larva of a son the ambitious film shoot for the stars and almost get there! This is a deliberately made and didactic told polemical sci-fi tale in the vein of “Alien Nation,” “Enemy Mine” (both underrated) and TV’s “Battlestar Galatica” that examines and reworks the notion the subaltern (aliens) and imperialist tendencies where, in a nice update, humans both black and white take on the role of the oppressor. By the end I found myself cheering for the death of us awful human creatures, then cheering at a film that has the nerve to have me cheering for the defeat of my side. There’s a lot to grab on to as “District 9″ is also an intense handheld or mock documentary thriller on par with ”Rec”/”Quarantine” and ”Cloverfield,” a B-movie, a monster movie, an edgy political comedy, a sci-fi adventuer that Spielberg would get off on (little boy alien = Spielberg smiling), a messy and sadistic horror film that Peter Jackson would get off on and, by the end, a mech robot action movie that Michael Bay would get off on. A lot of getting off in other words.

The plot, consisting of mysteriously sick aliens landing on Earth and hovering above South African for months only to become intergalactic illegal alien refugees in need of government assistance and affirmative action, is loaded with with gooey allegorical meanings. That’s  noble and all but the political reading you may, make that must, apply is never far from the surface and, beyond that, not really necessary to explore or debate with other viewers because there is nodebate about it. What you see is what you get. Same goes for the plot reversal where alien and human DNA are joined into a vessel as the human side begins to loose out to the dominant Otherness of the alien inside–hum, what could that symbolise? And why shouldn’t this stuff be overtly stated… to a point of intellectual bludgeoning. Why not just call it “Alien Apartheid is EVIL BAD BAD STUFF NO GOOD BE NICE: The Movie!” Whether this preachy approach is good or bad remains to be seen (I’m on the fence–no pun intended) but, either way, while the message at hand (or claw, or tentacle) is cool if not subtle, the way the message is handled within this genre piece is what’s cooler. Neill Blomkamp’s slumdog special effects are handled with technical ease (he is an FX guy after all) and unassuming integration and they are more visually interesting than the entirety of, say, “Transformers 2?” The difference is that one cost over $200 million and the other only $30. There’s a lesson there.

As they are reduced to sifting through rubbish and clicking at each other while wearing earthly rags (one has a pink bra on, hehe) and being handed eviction notices because, after all, ”they have no concept of ownership” (::rolls eyes::), the alien threat moochers are, in a word, masterful creations that work both visually and within the story world. This is one of those rare instances where freaky looking aliens are not here to destroy us but dependon us and the film is about how humans, through their mistreatment, have lost their humanity. The aliens are very pratical creations, believable in some strange way, and given a full set of cultural values and native quirks but at the same time they are always elusive and distant. They are more advanced than us but also kinda dumb in their inability to tell humans “look, help us get off your planet and we’ll be outta your hair,” and, oh yeah, they love catfood: we don’t know why, they just do. On one hand I like that the film lets mystery surround these strange and unknowable cultures (reminds me of “The Host”), on the other I felt the deliberate deferment of explanation at certain times (especially when it comes to the logic and motivation of the alien species and most importantly the reason behind the all important hybrid) is a bit of cheating, narratively speaking. I guess its easier to say “oh, we don’t know why that happens, they’re aliens, you see, erm, and technology does stuff, okay!” than to actually provide a payoff.

The humans of “D9″ are a lot more uncomplicated and as such nowhere near as memorable. Nearly all supporting performances are down right crappy truth be told (especially the Stone Cold Steven Austen looking bad guy), rarely amounting to anything more than one dimensional figures who have little to say (“I will get you!” is a line that is repeated in one hammy way or another) but a lot to do–the bad corporate guy, the bad army guy, the bad drug guy, the weeping wife, etc. Thankfully, one human –the one that counts– is anything but routine. Newly appointed UKNR (a gov organization responsible for “handling” the alien “problem”) Chief Correspondent, a worm of a character played by first time actor Sharlto Copley (picture a creepier version of Spike Jonez), is the unlikely star of the film. He goes from retarded to renegade, from racist to remorsful in a pretty kick ass (if not logical) plot turn. In fact, I don’t even want to explain the character away too much because seeing his fate play out it’s such a treat. Now, this is more of a feat on the performance side of things than the writing but I’ll take what I can. Copley turns in a breakthrough performance on par with Sigourney Weaver in “Alien” because he starts off so unassuming, cliched (i.e. the nerd put in charge when everything goes wrong), and, well, un star-like. For the first twenty minutes I was waiting for this creepy suit to get eaten or blown up in a funny manner (a la “Tropic Thunder”) so that the real hero could emerge. That doesn’t happen. Actually, it does: Copley is the hero and his transformation (in more ways than one) is one for the books.

If there’s a flaw its that the film has so many good ideas and so many interesting ways of implementing those ideas that, two thirds of the way through, everything seems to stall and it shifts into just an action movie where the clear cut good guys are racing against the clock while clear cut bad guys chase them with big guns, bellowing out lines like “you’re going to pay!” Honestly, it feels like a video game (fittingly, this was producer Peter Jackson’s make-up prize to Blomkamp when his “Halo” project fell apart) which I mean as both a compliment and a put down. A compliment because I believe that video games are vastly superior to cinema these days but a slight diss because, well, this isn’t a game, this is a film that is trying oh so hard to be profound and not always succeeding. Still, integrity has a way of hanging on through the mindless action, unambiguous moralizing, humans being out-acted by CGI characters and wonky dialogue.

We’ve seen all the components that make up this before but never quite in this way. “District 9″ is an unusual film that breaks a lot of ground. Now, it does not break new ground so much as old ground but, again, that’s not a put down because at least somebody’s attempting breaking something in this dying cinematic genre that moved to, you guessed it, video games a long, long time ago in a galaxy far way.

Grade: B