"Rakka" is a really new movie from this year (2017) that runs for 22 minutes and was released on Youtube just a couple days ago where it already racked up over a million clicks. The writer and director is South African Neill Blomkamp and once again he tells us about a fictitious alien invasion. This is partially true only though as it is really much more about humans dealing with the invasion than about the way the aliens got to Earth. Similar to "District 9", a film i really enjoy very much. This one here is not on the same level, but still fairly well-done. The difference to the film I just mentioned is that this time the aliens are really evil and they possess the means to control humans' minds and let humans act the way they want them to. In order to oppose this mind control, humans need to improve their own scientific research and there is talk about applications that manage to keep the minds intact. Overall, this was a fairly decent film. Visually, of course it is top-notch as always with Blomkamp. The most known cast member is 3-time Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver here and I liked her partially. I could have done without her in the battle scenes to be honest towards the end, but the scene where she talks to the guy they saved from the aliens was well-done. The best part of the film, in my opinion though, was the introduction, the very first act with the bomb explosion and talk about conservatory. Blomkamp is really really strong usually in his films when it comes to introducing us to the scenario and world this film is set in and this short film here is no exception. All in all a pretty good watch, especially if you like SciFi more than I do. I give it a thumbs-up. On a final side-note, this is the maiden projects by Oats Studios, Blomkamp's new production company that seems to be focused on movies with a brief runtime especially, so we may get more strong quality short films from these guys in the future. Would not be a surprise as Blomkamp was a prolific and successful short film director early in his career. Overall, "Rakka" is a film that also would have worked (maybe even will be remade) as a full feature film I think. Go see it.
Review of Rakka
