I went to the midnight show of District 9 last night (this morning? Whatever, I'm still a little tired), and... wow. Just wow. Definitely one of the best sci-fi, action, and all-around awesome movies I've seen in a very long time.

Little plot summary for the unfamiliar: Aliens have come to Earth. An enormous ship has floated over Johannesburg, South Africa, and keeping quiet over the amazed city, country, and planet below. After a few months of silence, humanity decides to break into the ship. Inside, they find hundreds of thousands of strange, bug-like aliens, all starving, sick, and in generally bad shape. In short, refugees. They're set up in a camp on the ground below (the titular District 9), in an effort to help them and better understand these strange critters.

It's now twenty years later, and humanity is restless. The sense of amazement has drifted away, and now the people are restless. The only things that's resulted in the alien's arrival (called 'Prawns' due to their unusual appearance) is sucking down taxpayer money into District 9, which is now a pure slum. Trash is everywhere, theft, riots, and assault are all too common. So, the government decides to up and move the whole alien population (nearing 2 million by now) to a different camp far outside of town. But when they go in to start issuing eviction notices, bad events start to happen. Something very big is about to happen in District 9...

It's a sci-fi movie that goes multiple routes for its story. It's a tale about the human condition and struggle, as seen through main man Wikus van der Merwe (more on him below) and the trials he goes through. It's an allegory for political and social issues of past and present (it's easy to see the comparisons to immigration and South Africa's apartheid era. Thankfully, while these themes aren't exactly subtle, they're also not hammered into our heads in any annoying way). It's an action movie. It's an alien movie. It's a satire. It's a fake documentary (many shots in the film are news reports or a cameraman following the people in District 9 around). And it combines all these things into something that works so well it's hard to believe.

There's the aforementioned main character, Wikus (played excellently by newcomer Sharlto Copley. New to me, at least). Not so much the hero as the main human in the story, he's a very unpredictable guy. He seems to be just another office drone, a slightly geeky guy picked to lead the alien eviction (getting himself sprayed with a strange liquid in the process, that begins to do very unusual things to his body). But every now and again he flashes with something underneath his bumbling exterior, a little racism (speciesism, I guess), selfishness, straight stupidity, and the general ability to act like a total dick. He's a mixture of good and bad, a light antihero that may be tough to sympathize with for most of the movie (though it helps that he's surrounded by several guys even worse, like the leader of the military unit). And it works, he's good antihero material, someone to follow and root for, but also understand (partly, at least) why he does what he does.

Backing Wikus up are a gaggle of other humans and a bigger gaggle of aliens. And these aliens are truly something to behold. Looking slightly toony every now and again (mostly when you first see them, but it passes quickly), they otherwise look spot on real. Their biology seems plausible, their movements realistic, their actions believable. It's outstanding CGI, a true show of what the best can look like even with a smaller budget than most blockbusters. And these are far from your mindless aliens as seen in other movies. No, these ones are treated as actual sentient beings, they've got personalities and feelings. They fully become characters in their own right (thanks to an excellent script), and not just another bunch of moving pixels on the screen. All this from guys who never do (or indeed, can) speak a work of English.

The effects in general, in fact, are truly amazing. The alien mothership constantly hanging overhead, the alien technology and weaponry (and the aftereffects), the fleets of helicopters, the body changes (more than a little of the spirit of Cronenberg's The Fly makes its way into this film), it all looks excellent. And bathed in bright sunlight even, all clear as day to see. The camera stays steady, with no shaky-cam or cuts ever quarter of a second. This makes for thrilling action scenes, since it gives you a chance to easily see what's going on (and by the third act battle, there's a lot of outragiously cool stuff that goes down. You won't even want to blink). With so much shooting, cool kills, badass guys, and guns galore, all between characters you actually are interested in, and with very little on the side of explosions (I can’t really think of any, actually), it definitely rivals any other action movie released this year.

Quite note on the blood: It's a slightly gory movie (well, fairly gory. That alien weaponry can really do a number on people...), but it doesn't focus on the gooshy stuff. Just shows that it's there, doesn't try to hide it, and keeps things moving (only occasionally splashing the camera in the red stuff). A nice cross for the squeemish (though you will squirm in this movie) and the gorehounds, with something for everyone.

There's a few minor problems here and there, nothing major of note (all nitpicks, really). Some small clichés towards the end, while working properly for the story, felt a tad contrived (as my friend put it. Though he was just mostly disappointed to see them at all in something otherwise so original). There's a few little plot holes (maybe; the ones my friend brought up I think I can explain). But so many good things cover them up, you won't notice. Especially with all the little details; this is a fully realized world, everything adds up to something that actually makes sense. The entire thing, in fact, feels and looks100% real, like something that could be going on right now (hence the pseudo-documentary stuff).

So basically, an amazing film. A true achievement, something that delivers something for everyone from a good story to exciting action to deep characters. One of the best sci-fi films in recent memory (even against the almost polar-opposite-in-feel Moon), it's a movie that I can't recommend enough, am definitely seeing several more times, and urge all of you to check out as soon as you can. You will not regret it.