Neil Blomkamp's "District 9" has a tremendous hook of a premise and, for the first hour at least, has action to carry its convictions. In fact, the concept is so original is you can almost forgive the first-time filmmaker for not being able to sustain the creative energy when cliches start to take over by the end.

About that premise: The film begins as a documentary-style piece, full of shaky camerawork and expository narration. Annoyingly, like the overall problem with the film, this film-making style disappears when (apparently) no one could figure out how to keep it consistent with the story being told. "District 9" is set in the near-future (next year) where a space ship has broken down above Johannesburg. A raid is conducted to find a bunch of starving aliens that look like nasty insects. They did not come here to invade or gain some greater understanding of our world like extra terrestrials in other films; they are stuck and cannot leave. They are not particularly advanced; these creatures helpless and  pathetic and unintelligent. Instead of combating them or trying to understand them, mankind - via the private company Multi-National United (MNU) - sets up slums and segregate them from society. The aliens even get an epithet: "prawns" which accurately describes their sea creature look but becomes something hateful. Of course, other social consequences arise from this situation mirroring several contemporaneous tensions. After several problems, MNU decides to move them out of the more permanent slums and put the "prawns" into more militarized camps. The person picked to lead this forced exodus is the inept executive named Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley). Wikus, during a routine eviction, comes across some sort of weird chemical that causes him to develop DNA quite akin to the aliens. This makes him very valuable to his employers who have been trying to unlock bio-technological mysteries of these creatures and he has to flee deeper into the slums. He befriends a particularly smart and street-savvy prawn Charles Johnson who helps him take on the very powers he once counted as an employer.

This satire seems, and functions, rather obviously at time. Not to mention the fact it seems to borrow heavily from John Sayle's twenty-five year old film, "Brother from Another Planet." However, the gritty look Blomkamp achieves for "District 9" accomplishes two important goals: First, "District 9" may be the first science fiction film that looks like an independent foreign film that strips away excessive special effects so more focus is placed on the story. Secondly, the process to "relocate" these "prawns" to a more secured "camp" has a nice Cops-like feel that offers allusions to some interesting pop culture hallmarks. Plus, the visual effects used to design the aliens are particularly arresting. One of the failures of most modern effects-driven films is that - any time computers are used to create a character - they end up blurry and ill-defined. As the late, great GeneSiskel once said, a non-human only connects with an audience through its eyes. If you can look into something's eyes, there's a greater chance the audience will identify with it. These "prawns" are well-defined and beautifully expressive. This makes these characters way more compelling and, when required, more empathetic.

However, keeping a great premise going with mind-boggling visual effects may be too much for any filmmaker. Especially for someone like Blomkamp, who has only "District 9" on his resume. Once the film starts to focus on Wilkus' fugitive status, the story becomes nothing more than a compilation of contrived plot developments. The same mechanics found in any film where a bigoted individual has to go into the same world they have previously bemoaned. Think "Witness" with aliens or "A Stranger Among Us" without Hasidic Jews. Either way, nothing particularly or innovative happens once the story becomes more pervasive. This is especially true since the documentary format is lost and the film begins to look like another ho-hum action film. While the sci-fi geeks will have you believe "District 9" revolutionizes modern cinema, the truth is "District 9" certainly had the potential but did not have the confidence of its convictions. At least it lools really cool.

Three stars (out of five)

"District 9" is rated R for bloody violence and pervasive language.