Saw this last night. It was okay for what it was. The basic story was good, the special effects were amazing considering the budget. The only thing I think that sucked was the director.
The documentary aspect sucked. The camera work sucked harder. The inconsistencies in story and motivations sucked hardest.
SPOILERS:::!!!!!!!!!!!!
The 'fuel' turning him alien was stupid, especially since it really only was fuel. The whole secretive thing with the aliens, combined with what happened, combined with how MNU reacted so quickly and efficiently to Wikus in the Hospital signaled one glorious thing to me: It was the plan ALL ALONG of the aliens! Now THAT was a badass story setup! Imagine it: The aliens dump a whole ship of their lower beings, along with a small contingent of the smarter beings. Let them study the planet/people from a lower class setting. Then, unleash a biotoxin that turns the whole population into worker aliens.
I was led to believe from the way MNU reacted to Wikus, that this was not the first time they had seen a human turn into a prawn. Honestly, watch it again when it is on DVD, you'll see what I mean. They knew way too much.
I felt robbed when this turned out not to be the case. Seriously, did the director not have ANYONE else take note of this?
- The prawns: are they peaceful, passive, bloodthirsty...what? Why do they take the human's ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---? One scene they can rip a guy's arm off and send him flying 50 feet. The next, they are getting manhandled by a tiny human. If they're passive, why do they have all that frikkin crazy weaponry? If they're warlike, why are they ---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?---? Why does Christopher tell Wikkus not to kill anyone when they hit the lab? Overall terrible execution on the motivations and actions of the prawns.
And what about those weapons? It's been said here before - where'd they come from? My coworker interpreted from the way the prawns scavenged, that they built them from scratch from trash piles. Well that can't be - because they are powered by "the fuel". You know, the tiny vial that Christopher took 20 years to accumulate.
The prawns just waltz in that big-ass battle suit to the warlord? Gimme a break! Sorry Mr. Director, but you shot yourself in the foot on that one by the mere documentary/security cam setup.
In closing, I have a limit to how many inconsistencies I can overlook in a movie. Once that limit is reached, it is open season. It's just sloppy movie making. Hopefully the studio realizes this Blokamp dude isn't big budget director material, and gives Peter Jackson the sequel reigns.