So, just how entertaining is global health care disparity?

Rating: 8/10 (22 August 2013)

Gritty subvertainment. This movie pounds its message about global health disparity home. It's more dramatization than science fiction in its portrayal of a world in which some people have easy access to health care while others struggle to survive and are treated with shocking inhumanity. Elysium is to North America, Europe as Earth is to Africa, South America — it's barely far-fetched.
There are really few futuristic concepts, with the exception of the all too chillingly plausible idea that the rich will simply escape to outer space if the Earth gets too dirty and inconvenient. Today's space stations aren't quite so plush — yet.
Immigrants are treated cruelly, the luxuries of citizenship conferred arbitrarily. In one of the film's better scenes, the elite on their space station Elysium use a mercenary named Kruger to shoot down the illegal immigrants ship from Earth. Again, this just provides an illustration of the way things work — rich countries provide arms to do their dirty work indirectly. The movie hammered the point.
The world view is generally classic dystopia, basic "Blade Runner" (1982), and there are some annoying and tough-to-watch overused tropes including the rapist mercenary and a "poignant" child. Bleah. Meerkat?! There are also fast and furious, hard-to-follow, mano-a-mano fight scenes, cue the dub step, which seem to be standard fare of late. Rather exhausting.
Great casting, however, everyone was enjoyable to watch (Diego Luna! Wagner Moura!) although, unfortunately, some favorites are on screen as cannon fodder.
The film uses flashback moments to establish our protagonist's motivation, and again, there's not a lot new here for science fiction fans.
As an exception, the pocket watch symbol worked for me. It created a tug of emotion and a nice final moment. Appreciated that.
For a more entertaining version of global disparity/subvertainment, watch Andrew Nichol's "In Time," (2011) with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried.