Fantastic sci-fi parable/mash-up of apartheid/"Alien Nation" meets "IDF" by way of "Enemy Mine"

Rating: 9/10 (17 August 2009)

DISTRICT 9 (2009) ***1/2 Fantastic sci-fi parable/mash-up of apartheid/"Alien Nation" meets "ID4" by way of "Enemy Mine" could easily have been the pitch for this shrewd morality tale cloaked in genre trappings: 20 years ago a tremendous mothership hovers over the area of South Johannesburg, South Africa, and its insectoid-like alien 'prawns' are discovered and eventually acclimated into a shantytown cum slum which leads to social unrest with the human populace demanding the unwelcome visitors to be re-located to the titular area run by a conglomerate that has other ideas in store – particularly for its unwitting, hapless drone (newcomer Sharlto Copley straddling the line of comedic sap and affable anti-hero), who finds himself a doomed pawn in their game plan. Executive produced by Peter Jackson and helmed by talented newcomer Neill Blomkamp (who co-scripted the tense, taut screenplay with Terri Tatchell), the seamless CGI of the aliens is truly remarkable and the uncanny parallels of recent history underscores the plight of the creatures at hand.