The 1970s were to good science-fiction what the 1960s were to social and political unrest, and counter-cultural deviance.  With genre classics like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Star Wars,” “Solaris,” “THX-1138,” “Logan’s Run,” “Silent Running,” “Star Trek: the Motion Picture,” and “Alien” all emerging in the same decade, fans have been longing for the good ol’ days of sci-fi.  For a brief moment, 2009 looked poised to capture that cosmic magic so prevalent 35 years ago.  J.J. Abrams’ dazzling “Stark Trek” was the first franchise reboot worth watching in years, and Duncan Jones’ “Moon” captured the sophisticated, practically-based, philosophically-driven essence of the genre’s best offerings.  Even with colossal missteps, McG’s “Terminator Salvation” and Michael Bay’s impossibly offensive and deplorable “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” fans and critics alike were optimistic that Neill Blomkamp’s debut feature, “District 9,” would bring the brains and originality necessary to nudge this promising cinematic year back on track.  Instead, we’ve ended up with only a middling, mildly interesting, and largely arbitrary entry into 2009′s sci-fi catalog.

Hovering ominously over Johannesburg, South Africa is an enormous alien spacecraft.  Have they come to attack?  Abduct and carryout nefarious experiments?  Colonize the lovely city of Joburg?  Make peace?  When none of the above come to pass after an unspecified period of anxious anticipation, the local human authorities reluctantly send a team of helicopters to investigate.  Upon blasting their way into the ship they discover thousands of sickly looking giant alien lobster-creatures starving to death.  In an act of humanitarianism (or is it alienitarianism?) the creatures are transported to terrestrial homes in a temporary residential camp outside the city called District 9.  But the locals are not pleased.  Who can blame them?  The aliens, pejoratively dubbed “prawns” because of their bottom-feeder appearance, are grotesque-looking, often volatile (as to be expected considering their circumstances), and prove to be quite a nuisance.

In an effort to subdue the public outcry over the crime and squalor inevitably overrunning the government-instituted ghetto now populated with 1.8 million aliens, the government contracts Multi-National United, a private military and technology company, to evict the entire population and move them to District 10, a new holding camp farther from Joburg’s human population.  Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a dorky, naive but annoyingly irresistible character, a la Michael Scott from NBC’s “The Office,” is promoted and tapped to head up the operation.  Wikus’ dramatic character arc, via hazardous and unlawful eviction attempts and his deepening involvement in the affairs and culture of the prawns, is the pretense by which an entirely different story is told.

To say the film’s subtext is an allegory of South African apartheid would be inaccurate, as subtext suggests an implicit, underlying theme.  Blomkamp goes out of his way to expose that blemish on the country’s record as overtly as possible.  The moniker “District 9″ is an obvious reference to Cape Town’s famous District 6, the once relatively cosmopolitan home to enterprising non-whites, the Cape Malays and Cape Coloureds (as they were known in the 1960s and 70s), that was demolished and its residents forced to the undesirable Cape Flats several miles away.  Even the prawns’ language is reminiscent of a major dialect spoken by apartheid victims.  Clearly, subtlety was not on the menu for Blomkamp or his producer, Peter Jackson (“Lord of the Rings”).  So, why tell the story of District 6 through the lens of a summer sci-fi action flick?  Only to woo the holy grail of demographics: Males 18-24.  Replace the CG aliens with the real victims of racism and xenophobia and you can forget about cracking the top twenty at the box office.  Why does it matter?  Missed opportunity.  The film demands legitimacy in the opening minutes via its compelling cinematography capturing earnest interviews and realistic news stories documentary-style, and then squanders it with a second half that could only appeal to gamers and kids with ADHD.

Some ancillary themes can be gleaned if you’re not too distracted by the ridiculousness of the premise.  Man’s recurring primal tendencies and the inevitability of any moral species’ debasement in the face of annihilation are skillfully portrayed, but fail to overcome the narrative’s larger issues.

The visuals, on the other hand, are spectacular.  The hovering ship and the disgusting prawns are photo-realistic.  The fact that all of this was accomplished with a meager budget of $30 million proves Blomkamp’s resourcefulness and secures him financial independence and limitless professional options.  With any luck we’ll see this talented director break free of flimsy allegory and video-game sensibilities and apply himself to a project worthy of his skills.

Score: 3/5