BEFORE: Continuing with the theme of aliens (and alienation) - I was all prepared to give up on linking actors, since this film has a South African cast - but as luck would have it, Jessica Biel from "Planet 51" was also in "The A-Team" with Sharlto Copley, who has the lead role in this film. I got very lucky.
THE PLOT: An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology.
AFTER: There seems to be a glut of alien-themed movies and TV shows right now - "V" is wrapping up on ABC, "Battle for Los Angeles" is in theaters, and so is "Paul", a comic take on the little-gray-alien (looks funny, but it seems to be a ripoff of Roger from "American Dad", but what do I know). Yes, aliens are everywhere, except for in Earth's orbit, so I suppose I can take some comfort in that.
For this film, you have to imagine a point in the future where an alien ship has been hovering over Johannesburg for 20 years - and a million or so aliens (working class ones, I assume) have been set up in a shantytown with terrible conditions, which has become a hotbed for crime, prostitution (?) and illegal trading. The humans had infiltrated the alien ship at one point - perhaps to get their "unobtainium" - and discovered instead the alien population aboard, abandoned and malnourished.
It's easy to make the mental leap from the alien craft to one of those Chinese smuggling ships that ran aground in NYC a few years ago, or from the slums of District 9 to a ghetto during the time of Apartheid. And that's all just where the film leaps off from, we get this background information documentary-style, as the relocation of the aliens is being filmed for the news.
At some point the documentary turns into an action-movie (I barely noticed the transition) and the film centers on a mild-mannered government employee who's put in charge of the relocation effort. The aliens, who humans tend to call "prawn" due to their shrimp-like facial features, are not crazy about being re-districted, or about any of their living conditions for that matter.
What happens next is too juicy for me to reveal, but I did like how the plot was very entropy-driven, things keep going from bad to worse - that's a direction I can get behind. But even after seeing many alien-themed flicks, I can easily say that I've never seen a plot quite like this one - it might be gory and hyper-violent, but it's wildly original. And there's such a detailed mythology built up around the Prawn - someone clearly put a lot of thought into it. The closest film to this in theme is probably "Alien Nation", but this takes the concept to another level.
Like "Avatar", the film found a way to get me to root for the aliens, which is no easy task. In both cases, a healthy hatred for government officials and bureaucracy goes a long way - but this plot is more complicated, it can't really be summed up in 5 minutes like "Avatar" can. "Avatar" reaches further, but I saw the plot twists coming a mile away, and this one kept me guessing.
Plus, it laid a great ground-work for a sequel - is someone working on "District 10"?
NITPICK POINT: I appreciate that the film didn't feature aliens magically speaking English (as in "Planet 51"), and featured a complicated alien language (with subtitles), but since the characters need to communicate, we have aliens who seem to understand English, and humans who seem to understand Prawn, but neither speaks the other's language. I would have liked to see this addressed, if not explained. Sure, it works for Han Solo and Chewbacca, but that's a special case.
RATING: 7 out of 10 cans of cat food
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