GRADE: B

Something of a darling to many mainstream critics, “District 9” received a whole lot of praise on its way to a successful box-office run; a topical action pic with an emphasis on military machismo and social consciousness that managed to extend its appeal beyond sci-fi enthusiasts and under-30 male moviegoers.

South African newcomer Neil Blomkamp, a protégé of New Zealand director Peter Jackson (“Lord of the Rings”), applies the mock-documentary form to “District 9,” a tall tale about an alien race that becomes marooned on present-day Earth, delivered mostly in the form of the lead character’s first-person, cinema vérité narration and mock television news reports.

It’s by and large an effective effort, with some clever updating of the aliens-on-Earth formula used several times before, most prominently in 1988’s “Alien Nation." But “District 9” occasionally falters from some unnecessary contrivances and a tendency to overdo its special-effects driven gunplay.

That excessive gunplay could become a problem for sci-fi purists and others if not for the film’s core story—a good one that uses the circumstances in which the aliens find themselves as a metaphor for society’s neglect and treatment of its less-desirable elements.

Set in present-day Johannesburg, where a massive alien spaceship came to rest some twenty years earlier, the mysterious and misunderstood aliens, called “prawns” by the locals because of their crustacean-like appearance, have become a segregated people confined to a filthy, sprawling refugee camp.

No one’s figured out why they landed in South Africa, but over the course of two decades the aliens have become so disliked by local residents that the government has ordered them moved to an even more remote and desolate location than the one they currently inhabit.

Not everyone is concerned with where the aliens reside, however, especially those elements within the military and the government who are more interested in discovering the secrets to the alien's weapons technology, which because it is “genetically engineered” renders it useless to human operation.

All of this leads to a two-pronged assault led by a reasonably well-meaning government bureaucrat who simply wants to facilitate a peaceful relocation and a violent and spiteful commando leader who would just as soon wipe out the entire alien population.

Those military efforts increasingly take center stage in “District 9” at the expense of some intriguing schematic twists involving why the aliens landed here in the first place; why the unwelcome visitors don’t use their weapons to fight back against the injustices they are made to suffer; and the plight of Wikus van der Merwe, the congenial bureaucrat whose involvement gets him far more than he bargained for.

With a strong assist from Jackson (his influence is apparent throughout), Blomkamp does a credible job of organizing these story elements. But his reliance on a major plot twist, which doesn’t make sense even on the story’s own terms, to advance the narrative and his failure to more deeply explore the characters and relevant social ramifications causes “District 9” to settle for less than it should have for the sake of action and still more action.

Nevertheless, this commendable debut feature film contains enough to make it worthwhile despite frequently struggling to overcome something of an underlying video game mentality.

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