District 9

Aroview: Superb sci-fi blockbuster from first-time writer/director Blomkamp, set in an alternate-reality Johannesburg where an extra-terrestrial race have been forced to live in slum-like conditions by humans who demand segregation.

The director shakes up the allegory with the introduction of Wikus, an aliens-relations officer who finds himself inextricably drawn into the alien's world. Newcomer Sharlto Copley's Wikus is a remarkable, unlikely sci-fi hero who manages to remain sympathetic even while clinging onto his last shreds of bureaucratic ‘morality’, his entirely improvised(!) performance complimented by grimy, faux-documentary camera work which unnervingly evokes newsreels from history class. A Wingnut production, this bears the stamp of producer Peter Jackson's special effects muscle and the spirit of his gloriously schlocky early work.

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