Disappointing on so many levels

Rating: 5/10 (14 August 2013)

As an avid Sci-Fi fan, I was eager to see the last big SF movie of the summer. The trailer seemed exciting and both director/screenwriter Neill Blomkamp and the main star Mat Damon are big names, so I had some expectations (not very high, mind you). Unfortunately, it turned out to be a big disappointment. So, let start with the post mortem.
The good. This will be a short section. Good special effects, both the CGI and the stunts were spectacular. Elysium was great. The cinematography was fine. There were some cool ideas like the exoskeleton (not that original but it was well done nonetheless).
The bad. Everything else. The plot was a mess, the characters were unlikable and/or underdeveloped, the character motivation was absolutely ridiculous and the character development (when there was any) was rushed and artificial.
The main character Max is not a likable person. All the sympathy I had towards him quickly vanished when he tried to be a smart ass around the robot cops in the beginning of the movie. How stupid you have to be do such a thing when you have a long rap sheet and are still on parole? We are supposed to believe that there was a big love story between Max and his childhood sweetheart and yet they haven't seen each other for decades. He didn't even know she had a kid. The extensive flashbacks to the 10-year old Max were nothing more than a diversion from the extremely underdeveloped characters.
The boss of the smugglers to Elysium is only interested in money, which is fine and realistic but at the middle of the movie he has a sudden and inexplicable change of hart and everything he wants is to help his fellow citizens. Never mind that he practically killed a lot of them, taking all of their money for 1% chance to be healed and 99% chance to be killed.
All villains are cardboard cutouts without any soul. Maybe this is a consequence of the heavy-handed political propaganda but nonetheless you will rarely find more ridiculous and unbelievable villains. Kruger had hilarious accent and the Jodi Foster was very weak as the "tough" but extremely transparent and stupid anti-immigration official of Elysium.
Now the smaller but still annoying things: 1. You have 3 ships that are just few hundred kilometers from Elysium but to take them down, you have to call a man on Earth, who launches 4 Stinger rockets in space and they fly with something like a 1000 miles per second to strike the ships about 10 to 15 seconds later. Absolutely deranged. Why not launch missiles from the space station itself? Wait, I know why! To introduce us to Kruger. Weak, weak writing, Mr. Blomkamp.
2. The atmosphere of Elysium just stands there even though there is nothing above to hold it in place. Well, the Moon and Mars are not big enough to hold significant atmosphere with their gravitational field, but a space station less than 500 kilometers across is? Would it kill them to have a force field or something to keep the air in place? Again extremely stupid.
3. You can be revived 15 minutes after you face is blown by a grenade because "your brain is still intact". Still, when you are shot in the heart or bleed to dead with severed artery, you are beyond saving. Wait, what? 4. A man with crappy exoskeleton is tougher than a military robot.
5. There are robots everywhere and they seem really capable but the corporations still need low-skilled workers to work on assembly lines doing mundane, simple task that even now are done by robots.
I can continue but it's really painful. I hope that most of these shortcomings are caused by the need to shove down our throats the simplistic political views of the director because the alternative is to think that District 9 was just plain luck.
Compare this BS with the Slumdog millionaire and you will see a movie that effectively carries a social commentary with much better plot, characters and message.
5 out of 10 stars and I'm extremely generous.