( CNN ) -- Why do UFOs always land in the USA , wondered someone in `` Monsters vs. Aliens '' ? Good question . Sharlto Copley plays a bureaucrat forced into action in `` District 9 , '' a film about extraterrestrials . But it 's not always the case , as Neill Blomkamp 's adventurous sci-fi movie , `` District 9 , '' goes to show . Presented in the now-familiar fake-doc style -- at least until Blomkamp gets bored with its limitations when the action heats up -- `` District 9 '' is an edgy little B movie with an injection of impressive big-money special effects courtesy of `` Lord of the Rings '' director-producer Peter Jackson . The story 's origins are with the extraterrestrials ' arrival in the early '80s , when they park their spaceship a mile or so above Johannesburg , South Africa . The ship is vast -- almost the size of the city -- but when after three months there has been no contact from the visitors , no sign of life in any form , the authorities decide to break in . What they find is a wretched cargo of pale , starving creatures : tall bipeds with scaly skin and stubby insect-like tentacles around the mouth . The humans call them `` prawns , '' and after establishing that the worst threat they pose is a cosmic PR disaster , they bring them down to earth and stick them in a refugee camp . That would be District 9 , a shantytown of makeshift wooden shacks , no electricity or running water , and scarcely enough space for the million or so newcomers . After a couple of decades of uneasy coexistence , even this set-up seems too cozy for the residents of Jo'burg . With civil strife and black-market gangsters getting out hand , it is decided the prawns should be relocated to a new camp , somewhere out of harm 's way . International law being what it is , the South Africans are required to collect the signatures to indicate the prawns ' acquiescence . And that 's where mild-mannered bureaucrat Wikus Van De Merwe ( Sharlto Copley ) comes in -- with a delegation of trigger-happy private security guards . `` District 9 '' is a truly global affair . The South African-born Blomkamp learned his trade in Canada , and found a mentor in New Zealand . But it 's the location that allows this allegory to resonate . Here in North America we may darkly imagine that interlopers not only mean us harm but that they have the wherewithal to back it up . In South Africa , though , the story takes on more complex , queasy echoes . The British effectively invented concentration camps here at the turn of the 19th century , and the Boers , the victims then , would mandate that native Africans were nothing but second-class citizens . Naturally the prawns come lower still down the pecking order . Blomkamp indulges in grisly , blackly comic satire worthy of Paul `` Starship Troopers '' Verhoeven as our man Wikus ( Sharito Copley ) casually demonstrates the art of aborting alien offspring with the aid of a flamethrower , all for the edification of the viewers back home . Complacent and overconfident in front of the cameras , Wikus gets his comeuppance when he accidentally ingests an unidentified liquid substance , which incurs an alarming physical reaction . At this point , the movie changes tone , sometimes for better , sometimes not . `` District 9 '' also begs plenty of questions ; not much of it makes sense if you stop to think about it . And Blomkamp seriously overplays his hand in the long , thoroughly conventional climactic shoot-'em-up . What should have been a taut 90-minute nightmare flick -- a classic midnight movie -- has somehow pumped up into a 112-minute approximation of a Hollywood action blockbuster . Still , `` District 9 '' has plenty of material to chew on . Expanded from a six-minute short , it 's a brashly confident debut , full of sharp , inventive detail ( the prawns are crazy for cat food ) and rooted in a couple of Big Ideas . Well worth the time , if not all of it . `` District 9 '' runs 112 minutes and is rated R. For Entertainment Weekly 's review , click here .
`` District 9 '' is a winning debut , says CNN.com 's Tom Charity . Film is about extraterrestrials who emerge over Johannesburg . Eventually , they 're to be moved to a camp , and then the action starts .