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You don't feel bamboozled, fooled, or patronized by District 9, as you did by most of the summer blockbusters. You feel winded, shaken, and shamed.
To call this the best shrimp-from-outer-space South African apartheid allegory ever made does not begin to do it justice. But it's a start.
What an achievement in filmmaking.
The backstory beats the hell out of the present-tense plot, a routine affair in which a well-meaning doofus working for the Man is infected with a virus, starts turning into an alien himself, and falls in with the oppressed creatures.
A bloody good time. One of the most original movies of the summer.
Despite its shortcomings, District 9 is an engaging sci-fi romp that features solid CGI work.
A rocking, rolling action drama about alien castaways that just want to go home, an evil corporation that wants to capitalize on them at any cost, and one man who freakishly gets caught in the middle.
District 9 has the potential to satisfy two mutually exclusive groups of bottom-feeding moviegoers.
District 9 isn't without its rough edges. It's a bit obvious and doesn't take as full advantage of its premise as it could. But it's also a visually spectacular and cares mostly about its characters, and that's a rare thing in film today.
Part alien invasion flick, part social commentary, Neill Blomkamp's chilling, thrilling District 9 is a wholly original work. And it features a star-making turn from Sharlto Copley.
Aliens clash with humans in combustible sci-fier.
Although the film is dripping in satire, Blomkamp is more concerned with delivering a balls-to-the-wall action film. District 9 has more in common with Aliens than Babel.
The most audacious, auspicious sci-fi debut in years, Neill Blomkamp's modest-budget "District 9" throws together xenophobic satire, political allegory and raucous action in a knockabout package reminiscent of Paul Verhoeven's finest work.
District 9 is the most original, innovative and entertaining science-fiction film in years and contains the best mix of politics and spectacle since Starship Troopers.
Best when it operates as yarn rather than as social commentary, even if it is filled with logical inconsistencies.
Screw Avatar - this is what people will think of when they talk about science fiction at the end of the aughts.
While the ambitious narrative bites off far more than can be satisfactorily chewed and digested, the fantastic ride through what must be a completely fictional world (right?) is worth a view.
While Blomkamp's disturbing thriller does have a semi-revelatory ending, the real secret is that District 9, for all its pomp and circumstance, is no more than a decent but scrappy science fiction flick.
Artsy vertigo, racial profiling from outer space, black on prawn violence, Nigerian gangsters into cannibalistic health food diets, and inter-species creature sex for sale. And no, I did not have sex with that alien.
The disconnect between the first and second half of the movie shows you how great District 9 could have been, if Jackson and his financial backers had allowed it, instead of what it is, exciting, but with nothing lingering in the mind after it was over.
Sci-fi stunner is gory, but also fascinating and smart.
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