Space station paradise for the few

Rating: 4/10 (10 April 2014)

Matt Damon lives in a society that is like a shanty town and jobs are hard to come by. You can tell this when Matt goes to work and he is rather proud of his employment status but he also has a criminal record so when in the opening scenes there is a spot check by the police at a bus stop, he does not comply but jokes about it resulting in a beating, a citation and injury which threatens him to lose his job.
The film very much lost me from that moment on. We then cut to the space station Elysium where people live in a lush lifestyle where the president seems to adhere to some sort of liberal values yet leaves the citizens of earth a wretched existence as the best health care is reserved for Elysium and Jodie Foster is plotting an overthrow. Again a half baked analysis of society, we have little ides what makes the people of Elysium tick. Why does the president care if Foster is merciless as to how she deals with illegal immigrants on rockets when he is responsible for the state of affairs on earth. In fact why will he not send these medical pods to earth yet funds doctors and nurse and hospitals on earth.
Back on earth where its clear this is a police state with a huge underclass and workers are glorified slaves with little health and safety protection, Damon having being exposed to life threatening injuries needs to get to Elysium and join forces with gangsters to get there.
The film had good visuals and set pieces but many expected better from the director of District 9. The story is simply nonsense, the characters are not properly sketched out and I am not even sure what political point it wanted to make when District 9 was an allegory for apartheid.