Prawn to the People / District 9

District 9, the South African science fiction tale of exoskeletal aliens segregated in Johannesburg townships, is the best foreign genre film since last fall's Let The Right One In. Its' mockumentary format, which breaks down after about thirty minutes, is so deadpan and hilarious that I thought I was watching an ultradry comedy, more Mars Attacks than Independence Day. Wikus, a moronic bureaucrat, heads the project to relocate the disliked, unwanted catfood noshing aliens. After being exposed to a mysterious fluid, his mangled right hand is replaced by a prawn claw, giving him the ability to operate alien weaponry, which requires alien DNA to work. Humans can't fire these weapons, at least not until Wikus, who's become the most wanted man in Johannesburg after news of his transformation spreads. He falls in with Christopher Johnson and his son, little CJ. Big CJ has a very interesting secret that it would be unfair to reveal.
As a matter of fact, as much as I'd like to babble on about this movie, its' various borrowings and the really weird treatment it's gotten from reviewers, ranging from the clueless types who have no business writing about this sort of film to more perceptive mainstream / "alternative" critics who don't seem quite sure what they've seen, I'll keep my peace until at least one of my four readers has had a chance to see this unexpected gem.