Unlike the other movies I’ve reviewed recently District 9 does not disappoint at all. It may be a late contender, but it is ‘The’ can’t miss movie of the summer. I was entertained every minute I was in the theatre. If you’ve read my other reviews you may have noticed that Robots and explosions aren’t the best selling point for me to award highly ‘geeked-out’ praise to a film. District 9 is a film that is worthy of that praise, it’s trailers promise an awesome time, and it delivers most excellently.

Almost equal parts documentary and Sci-fi drama, District 9 blurs the lines on story telling. Sometimes appearing as part expose with interviews and more candid moments caught by an unseen cameraman. Other times it is footage pooled together from security cameras, and CCTV setups, but it will instantly and seamlessly shift to a more conventional style of story telling.

District 9 needs this type of story telling to guide the narrative. The documentary aspect shows us what is publicly known about a world in which aliens have arrived on the planet Earth, where the governments of the world have quickly turned them into interstellar refugees, and the disgusting reaction to huge leaps forward in weapons and technology that are virtually unaccessible to us humans. It’s because we are totally unable to exploit them, that we completely feel no responsibility to help them.

The story brings a lot of new things to the table, for example on earth we hype up the idea of discovering new life in the cosmos, but we never imagine that it might actually turn out to be kind of a disappointment, or the new type of bigotry that might develop from interacting with an extra-terrestrial species. The District 9 creatures are referred to as ‘Prawns’ a knock to their appearance and to tendencies to feast on garbage and refuse, but hey they do live in slums.

The effects in this film are amazing, from the creatures themselves to their weapons, and their colossal mother-ship which has loomed over head for the last 20 years. A constant reminder to the world of unwanted alien cohabitation. There are a wide variety of weapons in the movie, each one delivers eye candy in the form of a deliciously vicious attack.

District 9 opens Friday August 14th, it’s 112 minutes long and is Rated R for bloody violence and pervasive language.