Heaven not on Earth

Rating: 8/10 (13 August 2013)

I initially thought this looked much better than "District 9". I did enjoy "District 9", it was original, aesthetically pleasing and somewhat suspenseful. This looked a bit more action packed however, and more star power, it does not disappoint. The movie feels similar to "District 9" with the environment, and the setting might as well be the same town. There is a brief intro to Max's life and we learn that Max has had a tough go of things, and has made some bad decisions. When an accident at work leaves him dying with no other choice to get to Elysium, we see a desperate man on a dangerous path to a forbidden space station. I enjoyed seeing the backstory get set up due to the look of Blomkamp's future.
We also get a brief glimpse of Elysium. Delacourt (Foster) is basically the Secretary of Defense on Elysium. She is basically in charge of border control, and required to keep others out. Other political figures would rather she not take as violent of a stand against intruders, but she wants to keep Elysium safe and secure from immigrants from Earth (cue political theme). Delacourt hires a crazy mercenary named Kruger (Sharlto Copley) who has a bit of evil in him. He looks like a nasty animal and behaves accordingly. Kruger and some fellow mercenaries are in charge of stopping Max and some of his fellow cons before they get away with some valuable information or end up in Elysium. This leads to some suspenseful chases, great aviation scenes with some sweet looking ships and flying. The subtle theme and message take a back seat to the action for the rest of the film, which was fine with me.
The good: I love much of Blomkamp's take on the future. The probation attendants and the police bots are amusing. It seems like once Max hooked up to the exoskeleton he would've taken more of these things out, not so much. The large scale chase, fight, and flying scenes were amazing in IMAX.