District 9 (2009)

This was an outstanding debut by the New Zealander Blomkamp. Consistently enthralling and keeping one at the edge of his seat. THIS is a recent film, like 'Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World', that should have spawned sequels. Much better than his follow-up, 'Elysium' (I haven't watched any others he's made since; hope he doesn't end up a cinematic one-trick pony like M. Night Shyamalan...).

**For a low-budget film, it's a good effort.**
I'm not a big fan of films about aliens, so the film won't be my cup of tea at all. However, that didn't stop me from seeing it, and appreciating what's good about it. Without a colossal budget or a powerful studio, director Neill Blomkamp gives us an intelligent and technically impactful film.
In fact, it is in the most technical details that I felt impressed by the film: we have extraordinary cinematography, with magnificent light and colors. The effects and CGI used are very good and prove that you don't need an endless bag of money to get a good result. The ship is strange enough and the aliens are credible enough, with a bizarre but elaborate and well-made appearance, and the way they speak is, at the same time, expressive and enigmatic. Much of the film was filmed in a real South African slum, and it is difficult to see that human beings are still living in such an environment.
The director bet on little-known actors, and this gives some additional credibility to the list of characters that were created here. Sharlto Copley is perhaps the easiest to recognize, as he has worked on some of the most widely circulated productions. Here, he is able to, at least, give us a worthy performance without major flaws... the only colossal flaw is not the actor's fault, but the script's, which gave his character a name very prone to jokes and puns in my mother tongue (I think French and even Spanish speakers will also understand): Wicus van de Merwe.
The film's biggest problem is the weakness of the script. It seems to me that the film attempted a kind of social criticism by placing, instead of human people, strange aliens in that filthy slum. Is the film a sharp criticism of the way we discriminate and segregate those we consider inferior or different from us? If so, I understand, but perhaps I was one of the few to understand. It's the only explanation for the way the film begins: instead of taking sick aliens to a laboratory and spending decades studying them in depth, are we going to put them in a filthy slum? It doesn't make any sense to me.