Starring: Sharlto Copley
Director: Neill Blomkamp (first major feature)
Running Time: 1 hr 53 min
Release Date: August 14, 2009
Budget: $30 million
Average Critics’ Score: 89%
“Madly original, cheekily political, altogether exciting…” Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
“…too tongue-in-cheek to be thrilling, not funny enough to be a comedy…” Kyle Smith, New York Post
District 9 is a low-budget political sci-fi film with no stars attached except for The Lord of the Ring’s Peter Jackson as a producer, but it’s one of the most inventive, smart, engrossing films of the year. Shot in a faux-documentary style, District 9 is about an alien race segregated to a ghetto after their spaceship stalls over Johannesburg, South Africa and the lowly government worker (Copley) who’s assigned to evict them two decades later. The result is a fast-paced, thrilling tale with thought-provoking commentary. Newcomer Copley is superb with his very real, evolving portrayal of a self-destructing man, and I dare you not to be deeply affected by the hauntingly bittersweet final frame.
