Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 is a sci-fi action movie wrapped up in a meditation on racism and exploitation. Filmed in pseudo documentary style it creates a fully realised world in which the visiting refugees from another planet, Prawns as they are labelled, live. Arriving in South Africa the aliens are ghettoised and put upon by their human hosts and their technology exploited. You soon begin to feel sympathy for the aliens as we see them treated unfairly and marginalised.
The alien situation leads to control over the aliens being contracted out to Multi-National United (MNU), a private company with scant regard to the aliens' welfare. Their only interest is in turning a profit by mastering the technology behind the aliens' weapons. It transpires that activation of the weaponry requires alien DNA.
MNU field operative, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), contracts an alien virus that begins changing his DNA. From this point he becomes the most hunted man in the world, as he will enable the unlocking of the alien technology.
The irony that this movie is set in South Africa is intentional and brings vivid analogies with the apartheid system. It’s a thought provoking film that is both original and ambiguous. Much more than just another Sci-Fi movie.