The film is shot as a retrospective investigative documentary concerning the fate of an MNU official. The MNU is a South African agency charged with containing and supervising a million alien refugees; low class worker aliens brought down from a mother ship that has now been hovering in the sky for 20 years. The aliens have become a problem, and Wykus Van de Merwe has been charged with evicting them.
Wykus has an accident which transforms him and sets him at odds with the MNU, which is, in actual fact, doing medical experiments on aliens [which are derisively called ‘prawns’ for their crustacean like appearance] in hopes of finding the biological key to the operation of alien weapons. Once Wykus becomes ‘the most valuable business artifact on earth’ the documentary pace heats up to full-blown action pace.
An alien named Christopher, and his child, almost steal the show. But the nasty Nigerian gangs and vicious MNU mercenaries compete for the limelight until the messy end.
The soundtrack is perfect and the juxtaposition of grungy aliens with the worst of humanity makes for a incisive commentary on Experiment Earth.
