Entertainment

ONLY A PRAWN IN GAME OF LIFE

JUMBO shrimp have justly built up a lot of hostility over the years: “Who you callin’ oxymorons?”

“District 9” brings their vengeance.

Ten-foot alien creatures given the derogatory nickname “prawns” land in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the 1980s only to be (allegory alert) kept in shantytowns and prevented from mingling with the humans.

Among their tormenters are (er, cancel that allegory?) nasty Nigerians who believe eating the prawny body parts will give them superhuman powers.

A blithering bureaucrat (Sharlto Copley) assigned to lead a team charged with evicting the alien prawns by force instead gets infected and starts turning into one. On the plus side, this DNA rethink lets him operate laser guns that only the intergalactic bottom-feeders can use. But to his chagrin the evil defense contractors (is there any other kind?) assigned to provide a final solution to the alien problem now want to destroy him.

Somewhere in the movie there’s also a tender father-son tale about two super-intelligent aliens who are hatching a plan that could change everything. They have only one weakness: They’re addicted to cat food.

Personally, where gigantic prawn-men are concerned, I say bust out the deep fryer and the cocktail sauce first, foster interspecies understanding later.

The movie, produced by Peter Jackson but directed by rookie Neill Blomkamp, becomes almost instantly tiresome by using the faux-documentary style that became cliché years ago, then repels the audience with the anti-charisma of its oafish lead character.

In the second half, when it welds bits of “E.T.,” “Iron Man” and “Transformers” to its “Starship Troopers” chassis, it provides an eardrum-rearranging burst of shootouts as the military men go up against the giant shrimp. It’s a kill-or-be-krill situation.

Fans of unrestrained bloody action will find plenty to rouse their spirits, particularly in the gung-ho second hour, but the movie falls into the same uneasy category as “Eight Legged Freaks”: too tongue-in-cheek to be thrilling, not funny enough to be a comedy.

DISTRICT 9

Alle-gory. Running time: 111 minutes. Rated R (bloody violence, profanity). At the E-Walk, the Lincoln Square, the Orpheum, others.