Many flaws but highly watchable

A bunch of shabby aliens get stranded on Earth because their mother ship breaks down; the ship is left floating over Johannesburg and the aliens are ghetto-ised and generally abused by the South African authorities. One human, initially part of the oppressive security team, is forced to see the aliens' point of view.

You know, it's very easy to find tons of faults with this film. The racism parallel is facile; the main plot development is predictable; nobody explains how the aliens and humans understand each other despite clearly making different sounds: is telepathy happening? And talk about saved by the machine..!!

BUT I loved it. There's a gutsy, belt-and-braces feel to everything; a dusty, sour humour. Who can't warm to a gunky, lurching, messy bunch of tentacled off-worlders whom everyone derides as 'Prawns' - who are, to an alien, addicted to catfood?! The sections of documentary pastiche are priceless (but this leaves a clash with the other p. o. v. ie who is filming the rest? - I wouldn't be allowed to get away with this in a novel.) The whole film is a visual treat, with CGI very important yet lightly blended in.

Possibly the most reluctant buddy film in cinema history, I was enchanted by the grudging, growing relationship between human and alien. And cute alien junior (they couldn't resist, could they? But junior kicks the plot along, too.) Humans give their full range, from military brutal to resiliently loving.

And the questions are left hanging: will he come back? And if he does, will he declare war against Earth? They have the technology...