District 9

I don't think I got this movie. I had heard it was supposed to be an analogy of apartheid. I don't know that I followed that train of thought. Maybe because I was never sold on the idea that apartheid needed an analogy. I think we're all kind of aware of what had gone on, and I think we're all kind of in agreement that it was horrific. Analogies are usually used to open our eyes to situations that we're blind to, by twisting it in a new direction that makes us see the truth. But does apartheid need to be twisted? Or is it pretty clearly reprehensible staring at it straight on? That aside: the movie almost had me. I was appreciating the mock-documentary style of much of it, and that it was changing my idea of the meaning of what I was seeing up to a point in time. But then I realized that there was just no sympathetic character on the screen except the aliens -- which could be appreciated if that was the intent, but I think instead I was supposed to be rooting for the bureaucrat by the end ... but I wasn't. He'd been self-serving in too many critical moments throughout the movie that when he did appear to be acting in a self-sacrificing manner, I just assumed he had determined that there was something in it for him. (And really, there was. Revenge. Hope of being able to reverse his physical predicament. I guess.) Not to give it away, but I tried to let the ending make up for the rest of it. The lack of clear-cut-good-overcomes-bad-and-the-world-is-safe-again usually impresses me. In this case though, it just clarified for me that: I don't think I got this movie. Verdict: Movie Rental If You Must