'District 9' (R)(out of four)

Director Neill Blomkamp is a man on a roll. The 29-year-old South African-born director cut his teeth doing special effects in Canada for TV shows like "Smallville" and "Stargate SG-1." He graduated to music videos and commercials for clients like Nike and Panasonic, and was then picked by director "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson to do a movie based on the video game, "Halo."

When that project fell apart, the two resurrected a concept from a short mockumentary Blomkamp made years earlier about aliens on earth. The result is "District 9," one of the most original and effective sci-fi films in years.

The film begins 20-plus years earlier, when a giant alien spaceship appears over the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, and just kind of hovers dead in its tracks. When officials peek inside, they find huge numbers of alien creatures who don't seem very motivated to do anything. (They look like a kind of vague cross between the Predator and the aliens from "Starship Troopers.")

These visitors wind up residing in a depressing-looking shantytown slum in Soweto, after the locals grew tired of their lack of contribution to society.

Although the film begins documentary style, the real drama begins when a private corporation called MNU (Multi-National United) is tasked with force-evicting the aliens into camps far away from the humans. The cameras follow the nominal head of this operation -- Wikus van der Merwe. Wikus (played by director Blomkamp's longtime friend Sharlito Copley) is the son-in-law of one of the corporation's bigwigs, and does an effective job of channeling Steve Carrel's character from the office as he blunders away with the messy job of evicting the sometimes hostile aliens.

Without giving too much away, Wikus finds himself identifying with the alien viewpoint after an accident has a transforming effect. The hunter becomes the hunted as he discovers his bosses have ulterior motives -- namely, trying to find out how to activate the mysterious weapons the aliens brought with them. Also in this mix is a good-guy alien played by Jason Cope, and his young son. The villains include a gang of Nigerians, and a ruthless security enforcer well-played by David James.

At 1 hour, 53 minutes, Blomkamp manages to keep the film moving at a fast pace with the right mix of emotion and action. The movie doesn't go overboard with the blood and guts, but it is definitely not for the squeamish.

Blomkamp has said he wanted "District 9" to be influenced by previous sci-fi films, and the result includes clear nods to movies like "Transformers," "Robocop," and "Independence Day." He's paid tribute, but has also created a movie that others will be looking up to. And don't be surprised if there's a sequel: the movie leaves the door very wide open to that possibility.