A cold, depressing movie that lasted too long

Rating: 3/10 (19 September 2013)

I really wanted to see Elysium on big screen as the trailer appealed to me. The first minutes of the movie were visually gorgeous and the setup raised my expectations. But then 80% of the movie, if not more, turned out to be a setup. You expected them to leave the cold, dirty, matcho, depressing world full of cursing and gunshots behind and make a difference on Elysium, as that's the title of the film. But only in the last 15 minutes of the movie the story seemed to unfold. Then they rushed to the end and it was all an unpleasant memory. A couple of things that really bothered me:
1. The characters: The characters left me uninterested. I felt no empathy whatsoever when I'm actually the type that bursts into tears when characters get a phone call that their nephew's great aunt's ex-husband just died.
2. The music: A dime a dozen score matched the dime a dozen storyline.
3. The story: Sure, there were some original details in the story but the look was stolen from Mass Effect for a great deal and the main plot was completely predictable. You knew about the nuclear accident from the moment you visited his working environment, you knew he would give his own life at the end. Not only were most of the story elements very predictable, they were also very very very naive. How can you possibly explain curing a human being from leukemia in less than a minute, especially since the display says something (vague) like: "reconstructing atomic structure". Even if that were possible, it would SHOW and at least take a while. Same with the weird South-African assassin's face. "What?!" And last but not least: Do they really think the world will be a better place if everyone is suddenly a legal resident of Elysium. Unless they make a sequel where the entire population tries to crawl itself a way on that beautiful star symbol and all turns to chaos, the story doesn't make any sense. It's utterly naive. If a child had the ability to turn everybody on earth super rich, he would do it, but of course the matter is much more complicated than that. If the makers of this film truly believe the ideas behind it, they are a bunch of grass eating dopes who need a reality check.
4. Heart and soul: There were so many opportunities to give the story a heart. For example: When the life of the Jodie Foster character was in the hands of an unhygienic nurse of earth, you would think she'd reevaluate her shallow motivations after they were actually able to save her life. In stead, she just asks her to stop trying and dies. And as part of the audience, I didn't care about her dying.
5. Acting performance: The acting was simply weird. Especially, the way Jodie Foster behaved and acted. I'm usually a big fan of her acting but this time, she left me puzzled. What was up with the weird accent and the weird gestures, the weird moving around. Fans will probably say there's some far-fetched arty-farty meaning behind it but if it leaves you puzzled and has no clear meaning, it's just crap. Matt Damon was...well, yeah, Matt Damon.
6. The "meaning": The movie was very one-dimensional "rich people are evil; poor people are good". It would have been better if there had been good people amongst the rich on Elysium trying to help the poor. It would have been better to see the two sides of the coin, not just to make the story more interesting but also to alternate the horrible, dirty, depressing chaos with the peace and quiet of Elysium.
But actually, despite all the arguments above, there's only one true reason for me to say this is a bad movie. It may seem small, subjective and insignificant but still... In the middle of all the action, I grabbed my mobile to see what time it was. I NEVER do that, unless I'm bored. I did it during Man of Steel and I did it during this movie. I've seen three- and four-hour movies that never bored me one second. Some of them I watched several times. There are very long movies where time flies and you regret the movie to be over in the end. With this movie, I was actually relieved to see the end credits. So even movies packed with action, noise, gunshots and explosions can be boring and I usually don't back away from them. Hell yeah, I love a good Emmerich or Bay movie but making good action actually requires a talent that Neil Blomkamp did not seem to possess, at least judging from this movie. At least I hope his next movie will not be an 'almost classic' "morally gray" "dark and gritty" movie that ends with peace on earth for everyone after a tough guy main character with a soft spot for diabetic children pushes the green button of happiness.