District 9 (2009)

Based on, and expanded from, the excellent short film Alive in Joburg, first-time feature director Neill Blomkamp soundly proves himself with one of the freshest, most thought-provoking science fiction films in years. The film depicts the plight a semi-intelligent, insect-like alien race stuck on Earth, segregated from the human population by the government, and forced to live in a ghetto. It works as an obvious parable to apartheid but the movie plays it smart, never issuing a heavy hand or an unwanted message. Instead you get a deeply fascinating look at a situation quickly spiraling out of control, seen through the eyes of a dopey, pencil-pushing bureaucrat who gets unwittingly snatched into the worst of it and intercut the retrospective of a documentary film chronicling the events. The result is a gritty, dark, often unsettling, but intensely interesting sci-fi drama thriller that asks nothing but difficult questions, all the while wowing with impressive effects. It has a few rookie mistakes in the presentation, but in almost every way this is one of the best films of its genre in almost a decade.

9 out of 10. (what else would I give it?)