Peter Jackson does sci-fi with shellfish

Before he hit paydirt with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson made bad science fiction films. District 9 has been marketed as Jackson’s return to his roots. And it is, in the sense that it is science fiction, and often quite bad. But perhaps Jackson’s involvement can be overplayed. He is merely the producer of this alien shoot-em-up.

The South African-born writer/director Neill Blomkamp previously worked on short films connected with the video game Halo, and was slated to direct a feature based on the game, which may explain why this film has the enervating quality of a wet Tuesday in the arcade. More interestingly, it is based on his short, Alive in Joburg, and the battle between corporate jobsworths and an alien species with an unfortunate resemblance to prawns draws parallels with apartheid. This is not, mind you, a subtle allegory.

At the beginning and the end — though not so consistently in the middle — the film is a spoof documentary, following the efforts of Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) of the MultiNational United corporation’s Department of Alien Affairs, as he attempts to serve eviction notices on the prawns/aliens who live in a Johannesburg shanty town, while their broken mother ship hovers helplessly above. (How the abandoned craft stays airborne isn’t explained. Presumably decapod spaceships employ very advanced technology.)
The prawns are to be moved to less comfortable refugee camp, 200km out of town. All goes well until Wikus unwittingly releases a canister of alien rocket fuel, which has the unfortunate effect of turning his hand into a giant prawn claw. This is bad news for him, but good news for MNU, which has been trying for years to operate alien weaponry. Human hands can’t operate alien guns. Giant prawn hands can.

Soon enough Wikus is being shot by all sides, as the evil corporate types try to harvest his organs, and the prawns remain unforgiving of his previous misdeeds. In a subplot which undermines the film’s anti-apartheid pretensions somewhat, he is also pursued by some angry Nigerians, who are black, as in blaxploitation, and seem to belong to an alien species derived from the DNA of Mr T.

It goes on for quite a long time. Many guns are fired, the walls of the township are splattered with seafood, and the annoying Citroën commercial with the robot car is evoked, as Wikus continues his transformation into a Prawn Terminator.
He’ll be back. Oil the wok.

District 9
Cert: 15