His and hers sci-fi: Man copes with alien, woman copes with marriage

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Science-fiction movies are thinking less and feeling more.

A genre once heavy with futuristic hardware and mind-blowing themes has discovered its gentler, more sensitive side.

Two movies now playing neatly display this evolution.

Representing the more traditional approach is “District 9,” Neill Blomkamp’s yarn about a race of lobsterish aliens stranded on Earth. Blomkamp, a South African, uses the setup to comment on his country’s history of apartheid and race relations. It’s a classic example of sci-fi providing a metaphor for real-world concerns.

In the other corner is “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” Robert Schwentke’s adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s best-seller about a woman in love with a man who is temporally unhinged. Without warning, he may be yanked into the past or future, only to return after hours or even weeks.

Relationship movies invariably require conflict, but this is a whopper.

Both films are about ideas, but one approaches mostly through the head, the other more through the heart. For the most part, the traditionally themed “District 9” succeeds. The touchy-feely “Time Traveler’s Wife” resonates less, but it’s indicative of the current state of science-fiction films.

BEYOND SCIENCE

“District 9’s” Blomkamp describes himself as a massive science-fiction fan, but he says he’s not certain about the uses of the genre.

“Films are actually given too much credit for affecting society,” he said from Chicago. “The way I look at it those topics addressed in ‘District 9’ affected me growing up in Johannesburg. I needed to examine them. I have no answers, but this stuff has been on my mind a lot.”

Besides the obvious images of one race manipulating another, the film also depicts black South Africans rioting against the alien newcomers, whom they see as competition.

“That was inspired by things going on while we were making the film,” he said. “We woke up just before our shoot to the whole city tearing itself apart. Millions of illegal Zimbabwean refugees had poured into the country, and now you had impoverished black South Africans demanding that impoverished Zimbabweans be thrown out because they’re competing for jobs.

“In just a few weeks 40 or 50 Zimbabweans had been lynched, shot or burned to death. That’s a very raw nerve, and it’s reflected in the film.”

Science fiction has always speculated about what’s to come, and Blomkamp said Johannesburg always felt like a dystopian future to him.

“You’ve got a few rich folk getting richer, and everybody else getting poorer and living in ever-decreasing circumstances,” he said. “It’s what’s happening in other countries as well. ... I just fear that’s the way things are going.”

On the other side of the equation, “Traveler” director Schwentke said his film “isn’t about the hard science or physics of time travel. It’s a metaphor for all kinds of afflictions — for disease, for mortality, for the need for love.”

Time travel is crucial to the narrative because it allows the film’s hero to experience his marriage not chronologically but in jumbled order — a nontraditional way of telling a love story, Schwentke said.

“It was a different way to make a movie about the stages relationships go through,” he said. “In that regard it’s kind of a love letter to my wife. But throughout we went to great lengths to root any conflict in real, relatable emotions. Above all else I wanted it to be an epic love story.”

‘DISTRICT 9’ DAZZLES

For the first half hour, “District 9” is a mockumentary chronicling the arrival on Earth 20 years ago of a huge spaceship. . It took up a position in the sky over Johannesburg, and in old TV footage we see human commandos entering the disabled vessel to discover a race of starving, stinking bipedal crustaceans.

Removed from the still-hovering craft and herded into their own township, these “prawns,” as they are dismissively known, live in filth and decay, fighting among themselves, dabbling in crime and rioting over their preferred delicacy — canned cat food.

Now after two decades, the government agency in charge of these visitors has decided to forcibly move them to a more remote location. In charge of the eviction is mousy bureaucrat Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley ), who uses his moment in the spotlight to go all macho on the uncooperative aliens.

Until, that is, he’s exposed to some sort of extraterrestrial chemical cocktail and finds himself quickly mutating into an alien/human hybrid.

At this point Blomkamp’s film subtly drops the mockumentary presentation, although he continues to employ handheld cameras for a documentary look.

We follow the rapidly changing Wikus, now a fugitive pursued by shadowy government operatives. It’s like one of those Hitchcock movies about a man on the run, terrified and unsure of where to turn.

Then “District 9” turns into a buddy picture, with Wikus and an alien called Christopher Johnson invading the government agency where prawns are routinely tortured and probed and where officials are trying to harness the destructive power of alien technology.

Finally the film turns to pure action with Wikus, now more creature than man, using an alien weapon — a sort of Iron Man-on-roids metal suit — to battle the small army of mercenaries who have been dispatched to capture or kill him.

Much of this is cliched and silly, but it works. It’s hard to resist Blomkamp’s breathless pacing or the illusion of the technically astonishing reality he creates. In what appears to be news crew footage we’re always encountering something unexpected — the massive mothership filling part of the sky or scuttling prawns going about their desultory business.

And in Copley (a first-time actor, amazingly) Blomkamp has found a chameleonic presence who effortlessly morphs from office drone to empowered jerk to pathetic wreck to vengeful superhero.

Taking a traditional sci-fi approach, Blomkamp examines contemporary society through a new prism.

“The Time Traveler’s Wife,” on the other hand, uses a fantastic idea to put audiences in a romantic swoon ... and only partly succeeds.

A TROUBLED ‘WIFE’

Lots of women deal with a man who pulls the occasional vanishing act, but Clare (Rachel McAdams) has it bad.

Her husband, Henry (Eric Bana), has a genetic condition that makes him time travel.

In the middle of a conversation or while making love or while dressing for their wedding ceremony, Henry may simply evaporate, leaving behind a pile of clothing. He’ll wake up naked in another time and place, struggling to survive until something deep inside clicks, and he finds himself back in the “present.”

Despite all that, Clare is destined to love him. Perhaps she never had a choice, for from childhood she has periodically been visited by the decade-skipping Henry. She has grown up fantasizing about him.

Of course when they first meet in “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” Henry doesn’t recognize her. The version of himself that visited Clare’s childhood home is an older Henry. In the present, this Henry has yet to make her acquaintance. She, on the other hand, is quite familiar with him.

If that chicken-or-egg paradox gives you a headache, welcome to the club. “Wife” is packed with metaphysical and time/space conundrums. If you’re looking for mind-bending ideas, this is the right place.

If you’re looking for swooning, heartrending romance, you’ll probably be a bit disappointed.

Henry and Clare’s situation is compelling but, oddly enough, their characters aren’t. McAdams and Bana are reliable actors, but here they seem bland , overshadowed by the mechanics of the screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin (“Ghost”).

There are certainly elements of the tragic here, but the film never quite delivers.

And you can’t help thinking that in adapting a big novel to the screen, an awful lot of interesting little moments had to be jettisoned ... moments that would have made this movie feel more lived-in.

“The Time Traveler’s Wife” will prove doubly frustrating to those who demand rigorous plausibility from their movies. Apparently the novel did a good job of finessing reader objections. The film is more problematical. It wants us to think about some big ideas, but paradoxically the more you think about it, the sillier it becomes.

If you’re looking for a hero/villain in this estrogen-ization of what used to be a boys’ club, you could start with George Lucas, whose Princess Leia was no wallflower waiting for her Prince Charming in “Star Wars.” She was smarter than her male rescuers—and a better shot, too. All while wearing her hair up like honeybuns.

Then there’s James Cameron, who repeatedly puts women at the centers of his sci-fi films. His first two “Terminator” movies gained much of their power from the love stories at their cores — a woman falls in love with a man from the future, and a protective cyborg acts as a father-figure to a directionless teen.

By comparison, this summer’s less successful (at least with critics) “Terminator Salvation” — in which Cameron wasn’t involved — was all about the hardware. The people were disposable. Without the relationships of the first two installments (we’ll forget the third, if you will), “Salvation” was doomed.

This process of sci-feminization certainly hasn’t hurt — whether it’s the box office, the bookstore or on TV.

Women, it turns out, are the most faithful fans of extreme horror and terror films. They’re the driving force behind our current crush on vampires (the “Twilight” books and films, cable’s “True Blood,” for example). They are among the most loyal fans of Joss Whedon, who created “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly” and “Dollhouse.” And ABC’s “Lost” wouldn’t be the phenomenon it is without the female demographic.

A science fiction film can still have plenty of big ideas and shiny metal things—but if you want to win over the whole audience nowadays you’d best bring along some feelings.

———

‘DISTRICT 9’

Director: Neill Blomkamp

Cast: Sharlto Copley

Rated : R for bloody violence and pervasive language

Running time: 1:52

———

‘THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE’

Director: Robert Schwentke

Cast: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams

Rated: PG-13 for thematic elements, brief disturbing images, nudity and sexuality

Running time: 1:47