Nailed to a cross of Aspergium

Rating: 9/10 (20 January 2015)

Boy, the Asperger crowd are sure excoriating Blomkamp for this one. This is a film with an even grander premise than Total Recall. I guess the Aspies can't even relate to a hero that sacrifices himself to save humanity. They are too busy pointing out that he didn't refuel before flying to Elysium. Good gosh, I am an Asperger retard too, but at least I have some tiny shards of empathy, compassion, and a dim understanding of allegory. My favorites are the Aspergiacs that have numbered lists of all the things they think are just totally unreasonable in the movie. Don't be mad at them. You wouldn't go to the Special Olympics and start slapping around the kids because they can't do a 4-minute mile. You also shouldn't wish bodily harm on reviewers so literal, so linear, so left-brained, so detail-oriented, and so lacking in any analog understanding. Just be glad your brain does not lack the synaptic pruning such that when presented with an image of people running for their life, your first thought is "Hey, shouldn't they gas up the car?" Perhaps it will give comfort to know it is a simple retardation, and when we get older, maybe move out of our parent's basement, and maybe have some life experience, we will be able to understand why this is such a great movie. Heck, maybe in 30 or 40 years, all these Asperger sufferers will come back and edit their entry to admit that maybe there is a thing called great art, and maybe we Aspies have a hard time understanding it, but maybe, just maybe, this movie does not suck.
I will try to explain. It won't do much good, since along with the literalness, OCD, and social impairment, comes a monstrous dose of stubbornness, but lets give it a try. OK kids, see, when you make a movie, well, it has to be visual. Now the real future work hell is all you guys sitting in open-plan offices, with free cafeterias and 14-hour days. But see, filming a bunch of dudes sitting all day and typing is just not very visual. And sure, it will kill you, with diabetes, and stroke, and morbid obesity, but that is kinda boring to watch too. So this living hell you are in --right this minute-- see, Blomkamp showed it like a factory with stuff moving and loud noises and dangerous radiation. And it will kill you in five days. It is not important that every little detail be coherent to how you think the future should be. Its an allegorical representation of the life you live-- right this minute. If you don't recognize the two bosses, then you should apply to work at any billion-plus-dollar corporation and you can meet dozens of guys _exactly_ like them.
And no, Blomkamp is not going to "show us more of Elysium" because watching privileged rich pricks living privileged lives in a perfect place is almost as boring as what you do for a living. And before you complain that it was stupid to have to shoot the illegal aliens down from Earth, did you ever consider that maybe weapons of any kind are banned on Elysium? I can excuse Asperger brain function, but blithering idiocy is a bit harder to forgive. Watch the darn movie and try to admit that its world does not have to work exactly like the way you want it to. Were you screaming about the woman wearing a 45ACP Colt pistol in Star Wars? I am fairly certain that many people sensed the populist political slant in the movie early on, and decided to hate it from that moment. So they start pointing out "the angle of the thruster could not possibly get the ship to escape velocity hence the entire movie is crap." Well, maybe they can cling to the belief that if we all act like selfish pricks everything will work out just peachy, but I gave up that bogus "philosophy" long ago.
The script is brilliant, the CGI is brilliant, the performances are brilliant. I found myself thinking "So that's what Jodie Foster is really like," since I need to hate her to console myself that I don't wake up in bed with her every morning. I bet she is a really nice when she is not acting. Dang. The only thing I hated, and I really hated it a lot, was the Spaz-cam. Just like the Bourne movies, where an IMDb commenter said "get a tripod and some lights". What is it with Matt Damon and cameramen having epileptic seizures? Leave that crap for MTV and Mad Max movies. I dinged it a star for this alone.