Good enough, but could be better...

Rating: 6/10 (12 March 2015)

After my last little foray into the world of Sci-Fi (With Jupiter Ascending... *shiver*) I feared the worst for Elysium. Thankfully, my misgivings turned out to be groundless... This turned out to be at LEAST 94531 times better. (It's true, I did all the mathematics meself) This sounds miraculous, when when you consider Jupiter Ascending is actually Satan in disguise, your expectations should drop from 'outstandingly perfect' to 'pretty good'. Which I'll take any day, considering how much WORSE it can get...
A shaven-haired Matt Damon plays a man living on a future overcrowded Earth, which seems to be one big shanty town... Where the lives of it's inhabitants are valued less than cattle, and the rich have long since jettisoned our planet to live on a utopian space station. It's got grass and twittering birds and everything. A sign of things to come, perhaps? Regardless, life for Damon in this poverty stricken hellhole couldn't be much worse... And then, in an accident at work, he gets infected with nuclear poisoning, which will cause multiple organ failure in a few days. Nice.
His only hope of recovery is by getting access to the modern medical treatment on the far-off shuttle called Elysium... Which is strictly for the EXTREMELY well off. And that's where the plot really starts, as Damon suits up in a cyborg suit, and faces off against b*tchy Jodie Foster (haven't seen her for a while) and ruthless bounty hunter Sharlto Copley. The special effects are predictably impressive, the actors give their all in their respective parts, and the story is SHOCK! HORROR! very easy to follow, unlike a certain other recent release where after the first twenty minutes, you'd need a SatNav and a bag full of flares...
As soon as a small, sick child is introduced into the mix however, and it becomes a straight flip between her life, and our lead's, the standard formula starts to take shape. In other words, don't expect any fireworks towards the end... We've all seen this kind of 'noble sacrifice' hero before. Wouldn't it be nice, to have an utterly morally bankrupt anti-hero who was determined to preserve his life AT ALL COSTS? He may not engage the audience's sympathies, but at least it would be an original concept. I'm all for it!! An imaginative backdrop, arresting action sequences and a clear plot with obvious objectives make this worth a watch. Not especially memorable, but it'll do for now. 6/10