District 9 would make a great double feature with Elysium if you are going for something that is very similar in style to one another, both courtesy of Neill Blomkamp. Unfortunately, Elysium is nowhere as good as District 9. I was very much looking forward to checking out Elysium and had been waiting a long time to get a copy of it from my Library. But it just didn't do much for me on a visceral level or any kind of level for that matter. It's not that it's a horrible movie, far from it. But I really had high expectations for this with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster attached to this one. The special FX weren't all that impressive. It didn't give me anything that I hadn't already seen done better elsewhere.

Not much else to say. It's just an average film for me. I will however point out a big flaw the story has. If the Elysium Elite is so worried about being infected by undesirable's trying to crash land in their Utopia, why the f*ck wouldn't they just lock down the airspace indefinitely? We see they have the capabilities to do just that, keeping all aircraft grounded. So, yeah, really doesn't make sense from a logical stand point. The other thing that boggles the mind, once again, they are fearful of disease, and yet they have medical bays that can heal the sick with the push of a button. Don't you think if they had that kind of tech, they would just have enough down on Earth to heal everyone, thus eliminating all diseases?

I'd give this 3 Stars out 5, but I'd be hard press to recommend this. Maybe it could be a rainy day rental. There's obviously better flicks out there that you'd probably want to watch first before this one. Since I avoided spoilers for this, I pretty much avoided hearing any kind of reviews for this. And no, I didn't read Mac's or Neumatic's review either. Really don't know what the perception of this movie is with the general public, if it's good or bad.

I had a bunch of thoughts on these types of movies a little while ago.  Here's what I wrote:

The issue I had with this, and a lot of movies that try to advance any social agenda, is they don't really go into the reasons WHY things are as they are, they just like making parallels. The thinking that insurance companies basically get money by denying services is simple, THEY benefit by keeping medicine from YOU. And I got the feeling in Elysium they were going for the same thing, but they didn't bother explaining that. They don't show how the citizens of Elysium actually benefit from denying the health machines to the world. Even if the distinction is arbitrary, we have to know why people on both sides accept it as the way it is.

I don't know if it's just because I have less experience with social/political movies as I have with other genres, but it seems that the same sense of laziness that we see with parodies (between, say, Airplane and one of the Movie movies) infects movies that try to get a message across. They seem to say "this is wrong, but I'M right" instead of "this, and this kind of thinking, is all screwed up." It's a really tricky tightrope to walk, I'm trying to walk it right now with a project I'm writing.

The mentality that brings people to systemically deny people life-saving services, and to shoot them out of the sky for trying to get it, stems from something disturbing and creepy, it's not just viewing them as "others" but as less than human. What else could that thinking lead to? The medicine machines should have been a symptom of something far worse, a core problem that we have in our society that we're not acknowledging.

You know, the more I think about this, I think the problem with a lot of these movies that are about an issue like this is that when you boil down the big issues that these movies raise feel so obvious, when you fictionalize it, it doesn't seem remotely possible. Of course you shouldn't dump toxic waste into the ocean, of course you shouldn't cook the planet you're living on, of course you shouldn't wipe out a group of people who are slightly different than yourself. The premise is flawed, so when you create a story where you're fictionalizing that, you're basing it on a flawed premise, so of course people wouldn't "get into" the story.   2/26/14 9:14pm

I added a little more"

Some should understand, some should just go with the status quo (oh god, please don't recognize that reference), and even THEY should be affected by it, the rules should hurt them too (perhaps we see someone get evicted from Elysium and their life goes down the crapper).

Ideally, the best message movie should have YOU figure out the message instead of the movie telling you, it's more fun to discover than to listen to a lecture (which too many of these movies do), and if you don't tell the audience the solution, maybe they'll figure out a better one.   2/26/14 9:49pm

No comments about Jodi's character?

Nuttin' on the ridiculous acting?

I was in total disbelief there. Much like watching Mark Wahlberg in The Happening. Wait, you're acting like this deliberately? Because you're not a newbie to acting.

My jaw was dropped with every scene. Totally ruined the movie for me.