District 9 is pretty solid. It's easy for reviewers fall back on it being an anti-apartheid movie, but while that aspect is plainly obvious, the movie is really just a funny, weird and totally entertaining sci-fi action flick.

The first scenes where they're cleaning out the Prawn slum and relocating them felt almost Boratish in the way the Wilkis' character's stupid, yet earnest manner was played for laughs. Then, as Wilkis gets infected, the movie turns into The Fly. The second half, when he's on the run in D9, the movie basically turns into a videogame, I was constantly reminded of one of those Tom Clancey 1st person shooter games that take place in an African slum, but with Halo-ish armored suits and wicked alien weapons that basically make people vaporize is a big red splash. Lots of action and violence in the 2nd half.

In some ways the movie's extremely innovative, unpredictable and clever, but in others it's totally predictable and obvious. My biggest problem was with the language. Between the Prawns garbled squeakings, the Nigerian gang's clicking and popping and the weirdly round Afrikaaner dialect, I thought the movie just sounded ugly and annoying. And I had an impossible time believing all these different characters were being able to understand what each other was saying. I couldn't buy that.

But all that aside, it's quite entertaining, and not at all what I expected with all the reviews and people in the street always talking about the Apartheid metaphor. I almost didn't see this flick because these reviews make it sound rather dull and political. (I went seeking a/c on a 100° afternoon) Yes, that aspect is there, but D9 is not specifically about that at all. It's really just a gross, uncomfortably funny, sci-fi action shoot-em-up / bug hunt.

8 out of 10 piece Prawn dinner after the movie.