District 9

Not the sequel to a film called 'District 8', but instead a fictional half-documentary set in Johannisberg, where a  spaceship has mysteriously stopped above the city, full of malnourished aliens. We join the story twenty years later when these aliens, who have been living in slums near the city centre since they arrived, are now being forcibly evicted. The man organising this procedure is our main character, Wikus van de Merwe. It's a sightly easy concept (the audience congratulates itself on noticing parallels with illegal immigrants), with some convenient turns of the plot, and obvious developments, but it's executed brilliantly on a large scale, with realism, and a grim humour. The bureaucracy of the administration involved is particularly good, and the main character's slow change is acted excellently. I wonder if the documentary style is necessary at all. It makes the film more of a comedy to begin with, like 'The Office' with aliens, but it doesn't really add much. The style is slowly abandoned, to my relief, but then the interesting concepts and emotions of the film give way to a fairly routine action ending. The final act of the movie is pretty predictable, and leaves you feeling empty, especially when you remember how well the film had started. It's as if the whole motive for the movie changed halfway through. Either one approach or the other would have worked, but perhaps not both. Regardless of this, it is a fascinating, almost brilliant, film. I hesitate, however, when I think about whether I'd like to watch it again.