District 9

What happens when a spaceship full of aliens possessing highly advanced military technology parks itself over a major city and waits for first contact? In Neill Blomkamp's District 9, those aliens are transferred from their ship to a segregated section of town, fenced off from the strictly human, and left to struggle while the military tries to find a way to harness their secrets. Seen as an economic burden, a foreign intrusion, and a quizzical curiosity, these aliens make ends meet with the limited resources left at their disposal, scraping by a meagre living while holding on to their coveted technologies. Enter Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a hapless, enthusiastic, South African citizen, who is accidentally sprayed by a clandestine fuel while serving a couple of aliens their eviction notice. This fuel transforms his body into a human/alien hybrid, extremely sick yet capable of firing extraterrestrial weaponry. None to happy regarding his life threatening transformations, Wikus escapes the authorities and flees to the only place he can hide, the alien's pseudo-encampment. There he reencounters the fuel's creator and the two launch a preposterously poignant plan to save both their lives.

District 9 examines racism, technological progress, media manipulation, militaristic modifications, and misfortunate messianic mollifications in a fictionally scientific fashion. The film's intellectually deep but solidly entertaining, bridging the gap between esoteric modes of artistic expression and smash-em up mass marketed 'action' flicks. Bit over-the-top, vicious, and sensationally subtle, District 9 still focuses on contemporary racio-cultural issues, productively pointing out that these problems persist. It's a shame that these narratives often boil down to who has the bigger gun, but, unfortunately, this is a cultural code that has been heuristically hard-wired, a potential fact, which, if I'm not mistaken, Blomkamp is ironically deconstructing (banging his head against the wall) by using de Merwe as his hero.