Wow. I had high expectations (perhaps too high) for District 9, and was severely disappointed with it. The massive plot holes, the over-used gimmick of switching back and forth between documentary style and a regular film, the predictable last 1/2 hour. I really wanted to love this film and in the end was simply bored.

Tell me I'm not alone in this.

hope you're wrong

I thought it was overrated. I went ahead and saw it because some of my friends raved about it, but i didn't think it was anything special. Better than your average sci-fi movie though.

Twas a good movie, a very good movie. Some have dismissed it as a "critter feature", which pains me, because those people are making out that the phrase is necessarily pejorative. I disagree, for there are many good "critter features" out there, including notable films like "The Dark Crystal".

But I guess this is besides the point. What matters is the setting, and how it plays out as something like JM Coetzee (SA writer) meets Philip K Dick. This is sci-fi, only it's social conscience sci-fi, with a substantial allegorical thread that many critics have touched on and praised or otherwise commented. But not only is apartheid covered, but more recent social phenomena in SA like Zimbabwean immigrants plays out as a subtext to this refreshingly different blockbuster.

The reason that the above themes work so well is that they don't intrude on the action-based momentum of the flick. They serve the interests of the narrative organically and completely -so much of your identification with the characters and the storyline derives from the sincere, inter-species (subtextually, interracial) message of the film. You root for the characters, especially the aliens, because of the idealistic, co-habitation intent conveyed by the script. Everything in the film is lent so much more weight by the profound preaching of the film -only it's not annoying preaching, for it's hard to argue with such an egalitarian, pacifist message. And it's not an unsubtly communicated message either, for such is the impeccable pacing of the film you hardly have room to do anything but breathe inbetween gasps of excitement.

This film is uncommonly entertaining for a late summer action picture, and is almost one-of-a-kind for the measure of engaging depth it accords its events. Multiplexes don't exhibit many films of this depth that actually pull off their ideas this well, so we should cherish this one.

Yes, it can be enjoyed as a celluloid rollercoaster, but I'd argue that you're only getting half the value if you're not prepared to take onboard the rich vein of recent history underlying the film's deceptively simple events.