District 9.

STARRING: Sharlto Copley, David James, Jason Cope, Vanessa Haywood, Eugene Khumbanyiwa DIRECTOR: Neill Blomkamp CERTIFICATE: 15 RUNNING TIME: 112mins REVIEWER'S RATING: ..... SHOWING: Cineworld, Showcase, Odeon, VUE VERDICT: A spectacular finale leaves one massive plot thread blowing in the wind, offering plenty of scope for an all-guns-blazing District 10 STUNNINGLY shot on location in Johannesburg, this year's sci-fi blockbuster has arrived.

Amid the miasma of film-making styles - 24-hour newsreel footage, documentary excerpts, interviews, state-of-the-art visual effects and tour-de-force action scenes -expertly woven by editor Julian Clarke, a heart-breaking morality tale about humanity's intolerance emerges in District 9. Remarkably first-time feature film director Blomkamp keeps a tight rein on all these disparate elements and melds them with real dynamism and style.

Opening in the early 1980s with faux news footage of a giant spaceship hovering over the largest city in his native South Africa, aboard are thousands of malnourished aliens.

Given refuge and segregated in the titular containment facility away from an increasingly xenophobic human population, over the next two decades the camp becomes rife with crime, and locals turn against the extra-terrestrials known by the derogatory term "prawns".

During the mass relocation of refugees to a new facility outside the city, Wikus van de Merwe (Copley) is infected with an alien virus and begins to change into a xenomorph.

Losing his human form with each passing hour, friends and family turn against Wikus and he seeks sanctuary in District 9 and finds an unexpected ally in an alien called Christopher Johnson (Cope).

Thus Wikus helps Christopher and his son Little CJ to board the mothership, with gun-toting chief enforcer Koobus (James) and Nigerian warlord Obesandjo (Khumbanyiwa) in hot pursuit.

District 9 is an edge-of-seat thriller seamlessly combining live action with digital effects. Though physically repulsive, we grow fond of the tentacled creatures as they endure endless persecution.

The script doesn't stint on the action set-pieces but manages to tug the heartstrings too.