One Paragraph Movie Review: District 9

One hundred and seventh film: District 9, which means my inner monologue will now have a South African accent for at least three days. This is one of my favourite types of sci-fi — grubby, unsettling, and set only far enough into the future that even a ghetto full of prawn-shaped aliens seems semi-feasible. I forgot how unbelievably good the acting is in this, and how seamlessly you can swing from disgusted ridicule to empathy, and how loudly you can cheer when a big spaceship finally burps to life after twenty years. But I also forgot that no matter how gritty you make the environment, or how spiny you make the exoskeleton, alien or not a precocious child character in a movie is annoying in absolutely all circumstances. A very good movie that always makes me want to both treat minorities with respect and eat seafood. Four and a quarter easily-removed fingernails out of five.