Beef Wellington Special Effects with a Burnt Road Kill Story

Rating: 1/10 (27 May 2015)

I thought that it would be impossible to make a sci-fi movie worse than Event Horizon, but was sadly mistaken. The movie works on the most far fetched premise, that somehow in the midst of gross overpopulation and environmental destruction, an immense orbiting habitat was created for the rich and famous, while the rest of the planet's population lived in abject poverty and sought ways to escape to this orbiting Elysium. How all the world's rich and powerful were able to pull off this feat, somehow intimidating billions while getting their incredible habitat created is left to one's imagination. There is hardly an original idea here, as regards the age old tensions between rich and poor, just a politically correct mish-mash to titillate viewers looking for cheap thrills. The writer/director of this farce, Neill Blomkamp, stated after its completion " I feel like I f----d it up, I feel like ultimately the story is not the right story." Well, at least he got that right. Oh, and did I forget to mention, the residents of Elysium are overwhelmingly white and the "illegals" trying to get in overwhelmingly Hispanic? The astronomical economic rise of China and India are conveniently left out of the equation, as is the preponderance of enormous gaps between economic classes in Latin America. Check out Oblivion or Europa Report if in need of some recent, satisfying, original Sci-fi; you won't be disappointed.