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Created Sep 01, 2009 08:59PM PST • Edited Mar 06, 2015 07:51AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Brilliantly conceived and executed, albeit ultimately annoying, this alien allegory of apartheid is a must see for sci-fi, action, and sociology buffs. Any movie “Presented by Peter Jackson” deserves to be seen, this one exceeding the usual sword and sorcerer shtick due to its clever play on the brutality of apartheid.

   Both master and subjugated races – er, species – get brutalized: the latter as forced ghetto dwellers, the former as instruments of immoral force. Black and white humans – OTOH – are one united master species in Neill Blomkamp’s brilliant movie, suggesting it’s not who you are but what you do that matters. Homey.

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   Mild Spoiler Alert -—-

   The movie’s satisfying ending leaves the key characters alive for a sequel. Hmmm. The aliens – derogatorily referred to as “prawns” – end up in District 10. What could happen there next?

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Sharlto Copley apparently never acted before playing lead here. Plus they say he ad-libbed his lines. Wow. Great as an everyman thrown into an unthinkable situation, the guy more or less rises to the occasion.

   Other standouts:

   • Nathalie Boltt as a beautiful sociologist
   • Louis Minnaar as a father-in-law from hell

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Writer-Director and ex-FX guy Neill Blomkamp channels everything he knows professionally and personally – he grew up in Johannesburg during apartheid – into his film.

    While the film contains more than its share of spectacle, it should work on the small screen almost as well as on the large due to the heavy use of faux documentary, hand-held video and TV news footage.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play OK 2.5

    The logic inconsistencies (detailed in the Reality commentary below) became mildly annoying by the second reel and then seriously annoying by the third. I’m choosing to ding the film’s script for that failing.

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    This many creatures running amok doesn’t come easily. Thus the Visual Effects credits run to over 200 people, many of them from Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital, the folks who brought to life the Gollum from Lord of the Rings, to name just one of their creatures. Add to this another 11 or so Special Effects people and a dozen or so makeup effects & prosthetics folks.

    The result is a state-of-the-art alien tour de force.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.1

    The movie exults in its ability to gross out the audience. This was as tiresome as it was gruesome in the opinion of this reviewer given how obvious was the intent to offend and how contrived the logic became as the movie progressed into its second and third reels.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Monstrous 4.6

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.6

21. Reality

    Fantasy 4.3

    Sure it’s a fantasy, full of the usual physical and biological liberties. That’s all fine, but the rampant illogic of how the prawns are portrayed marred what could have been a perfect movie. For instance, prawns are childlike and dim witted, except when they create and use technology that’s way beyond the ken of humans. This idiot savant notion just doesn’t fly.

    Further, they’re larger, vastly stronger, have substantially better weapons, and are much more vicious in hand-to-hand fighting than humans, and yet they’re easily subdued. This too doesn’t fly.

    It’s also worth noting that the apartheid allegory has a serious flaw. The aliens in the movie aren’t a native majority as were black South Africans under apartheid. Instead, they’re a helpless interloping minority.

    These criticisms notwithstanding, the movie introduces at least one brilliant new idea into the SciFi canon: We always assume that aliens will be superior beings. What if they’re not? What if they’re helpless and annoying, more pest-like than conquerors? Interesting notion, that.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

    One species becomes another. This carries him through a werewolf-like transformation that just happens to leave him with superman strength. The Olympics better be careful. If any of the world’s remaining dictators gets a hold of this alien juice, we’re gonna have a bunch of prawn-people atop the medal stands.

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0

    Conservations of energy, be gone.