If “Monsters” is any indication, first-time director, Gareth Edwards, will be dazzling audiences for years to come. Shot on less than a shoestring budget, with a cast and crew totaling only five, Edwards managed to create a fully realized post-alien invasion world more believable than the one in “District 9,” and more emotionally mature than many of Hollywood’s so-called Oscar-bait dramas.

The story kicks off six years after embryonic samples of a race of giant cephalopodic aliens were brought back to earth by a NASA probe from somewhere in our solar system.  The probe crash landed in Central America and the samples began to reproduce and take over the larger part of Mexico.  US and Mexican military forces were able to contain the rapidly spawning invaders in a quarantined area just south of the US border known as the Infected Zone.

Andrew (Scoot McNairy), an American photojournalist in Mexico, is called upon to escort his boss’s daughter Samantha (Whitney Able) back home to America.  After their several attempts to buy their safe passage home by way of ferry are foiled, the pair is forced to make the long and dangerous trek on land through the Infected Zone.

Bucking the troubling trend of increasingly video game-like movies, Edwards supplants first-person shooter carnage with meandering calmness. The menacing creatures are gargantuan — several stories tall — but are rarely seen. Violence is encountered sparingly and is treated with seriousness. The threat of violence, however, bleeds through every frame with a chilling effect.

Just beneath the artfully crafted central relationship is a poignant and timely commentary on the absurdity that is America’s immigration policy. Edwards aggressively attacks human irrationality and the plaguing frailty that leads us to be so frightened of “the other.”

If there is a weakness in this gorgeous little film it lies in the performances.  McNairy and Able have little chemistry and don’t quite possess the chops to deliver some of the film’s more weighty lines.  But Edwards and his team do everything else so well it’s easy forgive minor imperfections.

It’s not often that a debut film is this controlled, intelligent and measured, making this director’s outlook more than promising.

Best Picture

“Avatar”

“The Hurt Locker”

“The Blind Side”

“District 9″

“An Education”

“Inglourious Basterds”

“Precious”

“Up”

“A Serious Man”

“Up in the Air”

Actor in a Leading Role

Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”

George Clooney, “Up in the Air”

Colin Firth, “A Single Man”

Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”

Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt locker”

Actor in a Supporting Role

Matt Damon, “Invictus”

Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”

Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”

Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”

Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”

Actress in a Leading Role

Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”

Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious”

Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”

Carey Mulligan, “An Education”

Mery Streep, “Julie & Julia”

Actress in a Supporting Role

Penélope Cruz, “Nine”

Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Crazy Heart”

Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”

Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”

Mo’Nique, “Precious”

Animated Feature

“Coraline”

“Fantastic Mr. Fox”

“Up”

“The Secret of Kells”

“The Princess and the Frog”

Directing

James Cameron, “Avatar”

Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”

Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”

Lee Daniels, “Precious”

Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air”

Foreign Language Film

“Ajami”

“El Secreto de Sus Ojos”

“The Milk of Sorrow”

“The White Ribbon”

“Un Prophète”

Original Screenplay

“A Serious Man”

“The Hurt Locker”

“Up”

“The Messenger”

“Inglourious Basterds”

Documentary Feature

“Burma VJ”

“Food, Inc.”

“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”

“Which Way is Home”

“The Cove”

Already cast in the project are Liam Neeson as Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, and Bradley Cooper as Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck.

It was once rumored that rapper The Game, had been tapped for the role of Sgt. Bosco ‘B.A.’ Baracus until UFC fighter Quinton Ramone Jackson ended up nabbing the gig.

The Joe Carnahan-directed flick has already begun shooting in Vancouver, Canada, so now all eyes are on who will assume the role of the team’s pilot, Capt. H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock. The guys over at Black Film report that a reliable source is indicating “District 9″ star, Sharlto Copley, has been offered the job.  It is not yet confirmed if he has accepted the offer.

Among those thought to be in the running for the role either include or did include (depending your source) Jim Carrey, Steve Buscemi, Timothy Olyphant, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Chris Pine and Robert Downey Jr.

With “District 9′s” unexpected success, which many attribute to Copley’s exceptional performance, it’s likely the actor will see his resume get a big boost over the next few years.

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