District 9

Here's an eviction notice. Not that you'll understand what it is.

One half unsubtle social commentary and another half shoot-em-up, District 9 is fresh but not wholly original. The two halves don't fully mesh together, which would've made for a brilliant movie. Instead we have a National-Geographic/News-ish shaky cam setup (Cloverfield haters might not enjoy the first two-thirds of the movie) which then (devolves?) launches into full guns and blasters and you realize that they put the leftovers props from Halo to good use.

It's good and entertaining and while it becomes frenetic, it never launches into a full-on assault of your senses. Along with Star Trek, the two halfway solid movies of the summer, both happen to be sci-fi. And if Avatar delivers even half of what it's promising, all bets are off as to whether we are going to see another glut of science fiction coming our way (akin to the epic/fantasy binge we saw after LotR).

Not that I'm complaining.