Film: District 9

I went into this film thinking it would be a mock-documentary covering the racism and alien rights issues surrounding a bunch of refugee aliens who landed in South Africa (where else?). "This will be an interesting take on prejudice", I thought and I was surprised that I hadn't seen anything with this theme before.

Unfortunately District 9 fell short of the mark. Well short. It started off well enough, using fake-real-life interviews to tell the backstory of how the aliens first arrived and how they were being perceived by the human population already there. But this only lasted for the first twenty minutes or so, after which District 9 regressed into nothing but an all out action flick of an Independence Day like flavour - where we had poverty and forced relocation in the first bit, we had ray guns, robot suits and tractor beams in the rest.

That's not to say that the popcorn half of the film wasn't good, it was just a bit disappointing. This was an opportunity to make some important points about tolerance and acceptance but decided to go the way of Men In Black instead.

Production values were of a high standard - D9 was well filmed and acted in - and it had a good enough plot once I decided to accept it for what it was. But to put this up as one of the most important films this year is a bit too much and something I can't bring myself to agree with. Recommended, albeit with a bit of disappointment.