District 9

Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a hapless middle manager in a Johannesburg security corporation, is charged with maintaining order in District 9, a sprawling slum of intergalactic refugees. During an eviction riot, Wikus is infected with alien DNA and has to go on the run from the  corporation he works for, forcing him to rely on the "prawns" (the racist term for the extraterrestrials used to great effect throughout the movie) for his survival.

Because the action takes place 20 years after the aliens first arrive, the humans are not scared or awestruck: they're angry. They want these intruders to go home. The film begins in documentary style, mixing in news reports, interviews and handheld camera footage. This helps to suspend the audience disbelief that so often accompanies science fiction – the creatures have been introduced in the kind of scenes we see on the TV news every night. While most other close encounter epics turn each CGI trick into a screen-slowing grand event, here the alien technology fades into the dusty, flyblown slum background.

The main flaw here is the fairly simplistic portrayal of the aliens. We're meant to feel sorry for them because of the brutality of their human captors, but apart from the alien lead (named "Christopher Johnson"), they're basically savages. But that's not to detract from Blomkamp's achievement in writing and directing a science fiction actioner that transcends the genre enough to appeal to non-geeks.