District 9

First-time director Neil Blomkamp smashes onto the filmmaking scene with his sharply original debut movie, delivering a fast-paced thriller packed full of gags and guts in the manner of his mentor, producer Peter Jackson.

D9 is more than just a Close Encounters for the YouTube age. Unlike the single handy-cam approach in Cloverfield, this is an engrossing mash-up of corporate video, talking heads, security tapes and archival footage. Even as the film moves into more a conventional storytelling mode, the camerawork is suitably ‘unrehearsed’ enough to look like something we might see on the six o’clock news.

The relatively low-budget flick turns sci-fi conventions on their head. These aliens look repulsive, like the mutant offspring of a grasshopper and a crayfish, and they’re pretty useless against humans. The setting isn’t a glossy New York or London either; it’s a dusty slum on the outskirts of Johannesburg – a derelict shantytown of junk and jetsam – and the apartheid parallels are rife. Most surprising is the tone, which veers much further towards straight comedy than expected (much like Korean monster flick The Host). The lead character, Wikus Van De Merwe (played by Blomkamp’s high school friend Sharlto Copley), is a buffoon right to the end.

Try not to examine the story too closely – some of the finer details are a bit dubious. But this clever, fun, savvy filmmaking debut bears the mark of a fresh pair of eyes bringing originality into the world of the blockbuster.