Middle of the Road

Rating: 5/10 (9 August 2013)

Man., talk about immigration restrictions! In this film the wealthy society have left earth and moved into outer space to a spiraling community called Elysium. Healthcare back on earth is virtually non-existent, while on Elysium (as shown in the trailer) there is a magic healing machine that can fix any kind of ailment that you can think of. I thought during the film that if such a machine did exist, earth would explode with population growth. Maybe that will be the sequel (smile). I was also happy to see that they re-used earthly communities from District 9 (or something very similar). Why not save a buck when you can. Max (Matt Damon) finds himself in a very volatile situation and desperately needs to get to Elysium to rectify the situation. In order to get this done he has to make a "last ditch" deal with Spider (Wagner Moura) who is the local deviant. Max also bumps into his childhood friend, Frey (Alice Braga) who somehow manages to get herself entangled in this whole mess. There is also an undercover hit man running around earth named Kruger (Sharlto Copley – reappearing from District 9) who works for the corrupt Delacourt (Jodie Foster). I have to pause here and just say that I couldn't understand one thing that Kruger was saying. Anyway, Delacourt is constantly breaking the rules and is tired of taking orders from the space court. She wants to do things her way. That being said, in comes John Carlyle (William Fichtner) who is a greedy business man looking to get as many government contracts as he can. The robot army in the film kind of reminded me of I, Robot (especially at the end of the film). I think that director Neill Blomkamp is definitely comfortable in this genre and I think he should continue to make Sci-fi films, however I think that this film lacked an emotional connection for me. I really never got vested in the main character although Frey's daughter did tug at the heart strings just a bit. On a positive note, I think that parts of the film were visually stunning. It never ceases to amaze me with what they can do with CGI. I found the film to be very predictable, but I am glad that it was not butt-blister long. There are a lot of films opening this weekend and I am not sure that I would put this one at the top of the list. I give this film an amber light.