District 9

Rated R for language, violence, gore

Starring Sharlto Copley

Set in 1982, an alien spaceship comes to Earth and hovers directly above Johannesburg, South Africa. Supposidly part of the ship broke off and dropped to Earth, but was unable to be found, leaving this ship stranded on our planet. After no activity from the ship for some team, an exploratory team flies up to the ship and opens it up to find a million starved and dying creatures that look like giant arthropods. In an attempt to help the creatures surivive, they brought down to Earth and placed in a slum community, named District 9, under the watch of MNU, Multinational United, who polices the district, as the inhabits, referred to derogatorily as "Prawns" are becoming more and more destructive.

It is decided that District 9 is running out of space and the Prawns will need to be relocated to the newly formed District 10. Heading up the operation is Wikus van de Merwe, who is forced to serve the Prawns with eviction notices, informing of them of the move. However, one alien, known to us as Christopher Johnson, and his young son, resist Wikus and the MNU, as Christopher seems to have a higher intellect that the others and understand his rights. While raiding Christopher's shack, Wikus discovers a strange container and takes it with him, however, not knowing what it is, Wikus tampers with it, causing it to spray him in the face.

Within the next 12 hours, Wikus falls ill and starts to change, physically, developing an arm like the aliens. After being taken into MNU custody, they begin to test Wikus' new arm, and discover that he can operate the alien's weaponry, as it is only responsive to their DNA. MNU then decides to cut open Wikus and vivisect him, however he freaks out and runs to District 9 for refuge, where he again encounters Christopher and his son. Christopher tells Wikus he can change him back eventually, but first they need to break into MNU and retrieve the canister Wikus took earlier from Christopher, as it contained just enough fuel to get the alien ship started up again and take them back to their home planet.

While a bit graphic and violent for some, District 9 deals a lot with the theme of racism. Wikus treats the Prawns poorly as he is evicting them, but then begins to see things from the other side once he begins to turn into one of them.

If you like sci-fi adventures and don't mind a bit of graphic violence, be sure to visit District 9.