the pros and cons of living in a bicycle wheel

Rating: 4/10 (21 February 2014)

This is a sci-fi yarn about the earth about 150 years from now, which isn't a place you want to live (it barely is even now), but the rich folks have built a giant bicycle wheel in the sky where they all live. Jodie is one of the ones in charge up there. That's pretty special in itself. The poor, mostly criminal citizens of earth all seem to believe that if they could get to the bicycle wheel things would be fine again, forgetting that the earth is the way it is mostly because of creeps like them, not because of the people who have made things like the bicycle wheel possible.
The script is wooden and trite. Certainly the worst role and acting I've ever seen out of Jodie Foster. (I've mostly liked her in the past. In this she's beyond terrible.)
Matt Damon does as well as can be expected given what he has to do, but this is not the kind of thing I like to see him in. Matt Damon is a brilliant guy. Why do this? He reminds me of Nicholas Cage, a fine actor whose career went down the drain when he started doing junk material. I haven't seen a good movie of his in twenty years.
In this age, computers still speak in subordinate clauses through tinny, echoy speakers to everyone in a 200-yard radius. "Preparing for departure" "Terminating procedure" "Initiating B-29 protocol." "Warning -- unidentified incoming vehicle".
Bad guys still can't shoot straight, even the robots who seem to be smarter than humans, but a lot meaner. People still say things like "Roger, copy that" into hand-held microphones.
Every sci-fi movie has to have some way of "overriding" some invincible technology -- usually by finding a password that someone guesses on only two tries, which displays in plaintext in two-inch letters on a computer screen.
Everyone still swears the same 150 years from now: lots, real loud, and using the same customary words. And if someone doesn't respond to something they say the first time, they say it a lot louder, with a lot more swear words inserted. You'd think in 150 years they'd think of a few new meaningless words.
The fight and action scenes were endlessly protracted. They usually are in movies of this type.
When they download a bunch of valuable information that happens to be stored in Matt Damon's head, they get 50 exabytes of data. Are there 50 exabytes of disk storage in the world right now? Maybe. There sure isn't that much data about anything you'd want to know about. Certainly not stored in Matt Damon's head. Oh, and they're able to download that information in about thirty seconds. Which is good, because in the end Matt Damon's character doesn't need it any more.
In the end, much of the struggle is about getting medical help for a little girl, the daughter of a girl Matt Damon's character grew up with. Then they decided to be close forever, but somehow when we first meet them as adults, that hadn't happened, although they are by no means enemies. As for the little girl, she's certainly medium to not really so adorable, and has no lines, and does nothing but lie down and be sick -- while smiling for the camera. There is no particular reason to care about her any more than any other adorable little sick girl, certainly not enough to risk the future of planet earth to get her medical help.
Minor spoiler follows.
In the end she gets it. Was that really a spoiler? I don't think so. Does earth survive? I'll let you guess about that one.
They can do pretty much anything with CGI now. Problem is not everything is worth doing or seeing.
Somehow I *did* manage to stay awake.
Note that my rating system centers on 7 for starters, and movies have to earn or lose points.