If someone were to ask me who my top 3 most despised directors were…
Neill Blomkamp would be #2 right behind Tim Burton. This guy is THE most one-notes director I’ve ever seen! He specializes in Sci-Fi it seems and was an impressive Visual Effects artist… but his foray into actual directing… that’s where he leaves much to be desired.
He has so far made three full length feature films, one of which has been released. You all know it, the grotesque travesty known simply as District 9.
So let’s get down to the real issue I have with this guy… All of his films are underhanded political statements against apartheid!!! I’m serious, watch District 9 and then watch the previews for Elysium. It’s a movie about a group of elite people who live in paradise while everyone else of a specific type are living in squalor… sound familiar?
I wouldn’t mind so much except that he masks his political docu-dramas as intense-looking Sci-Fi/Action stories. District 9 was grotesque and just unpleasant to watch on all levels. Though this one has some credibility in Matt Damon, I just don’t think I’m going to be seeing this one. Usually I’m not one to hold one flop against someone, but when you make a movie and deceptively market it as something other than what it is, and then it makes its way on to my top 5 worst movies of all time, yeah that’s when you enter unforgivable territory.
Neill Blomkamp, we get it, you’re a South African who saw and experienced the horrors of Apartheid, we get it. Now it’s time to GET OVER IT! You’ve made your docu-drama, now move on to something else. Otherwise, eventually your audience is going to catch on!