Franz Kafka meets "Alien" in "District 9," a science-fiction thriller with a heart and a brain.

Directed by feature-film newcomer Neill Blomkamp, it has all the action you'd want. But its originality and unique visual audacity place it in a category all its own.

The plot starts 20 years in the past, when an alien space craft runs out of gas over Johannesburg, South Africa. The yucky-looking inhabitants are placed in District 9, a detention camp that degenerates into a slum of thrown-together shacks, garbage and social disorder.

The fearful locals want no part of the visitors, who look like walking crustaceans. They prejudicially nickname them prawns, find their fondness for cat food disgusting, and ban them from public places. Crime pops up in the impoverished slum and the aliens turn to vandalism for entertainment.

A private contracting firm called Multi-National United is hired to manage alien affairs and it's ordered to relocate District 9's residents to a new camp farther away from the city. Wikus Van De Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley, is the bureaucrat in charge of the mission. Kind of a dweeb, Wikus gets the job not because of talent but because of nepotism.

While Wikus is serving notice on District 9's residents, he's exposed to some mysterious alien substance and his arm begins to mutate into that of an alien. This is where the movie changes from a faux documentary to a chase adventure.

The aliens have superior weaponry that the humans confiscate. But only alien DNA can activate the ultra-destructive ordinance. Wikus and his plight might provide the key to the weapons problem.

MNU wants to harvest his organs for experimentation. A Nigerian crime lord played by Mandla Gaduka wants to eat the alien arm because he's been told by witch doctors that such an act will enable him to operate the weapons he owns but can't use. Wikus can only find refuge in District 9, where he finds help from a prawn and his little son.

South African-born Blomkamp and co-writer Terri Tatchell obviously draw on South Africa's history of apartheid for inspiration. But they don't let the message overwhelm the many thrills the movie delivers. There are some shaky plot mechanics but the style, the innovation and the energy blow right through them.

At the heart of the movie is Copley, and his character transformation provides the drama. He's not a willful bad guy as his story begins, just a bureaucrat who, as they said about his counterparts in Nazi Germany, made the trains run on time.

Wikus's transformation into an alien leads him to his true humanity and away from his original wimpiness. Copley shines in the role.

Blomkamp finishes the movie with a shot of real poignancy and leaves open the possibility for more. Let's hope this gifted director returns with the further adventures of Wikus and the prawns.

District 9
4-1/2 stars
Showing at Carmike 10 at Tanglewood, Salem Valley 8 and Valley View Grande 16. Rated R for violence and language. One hour, 55 minutes.