Unfortunately as bad as I expected

Rating: 2/10 (24 December 2013)

Be warned that this review contains spoilers.
Unfortunately this movie was as bad as I expected. I got it to my collection since it was one of the "big" movies this year and it was a sci-fi movie. Given how much it is bragged about the fact that the director have also been behind "District 9″, which I did not like at all, on the poster I really did not have my hopes up very high though and I was not surprised.
The entire plot is rather ludicrous from the start and it is filled with social messages about wicked industrialists, oppressed poor, wasting of limited resources etc. etc. bla. bla. Add in the usual working class hero stuff, a heroin to care about and a sick kid for some additional "compassion effects" and that is it. These social "them and us", "the elite and the rest", type of movies have been done so many times and they are equally boring every time. I just do not like movies that try to force some message down the viewer's throat. I watch movies to be entertained.
Even if you try and ignore the social messages that you are force feed the rest of the movie is also just not very good. For example they have this big space station where the majority of the population is not allowed and still they seem to not have thought about any defences whatsoever. They have to shoot down advancing shuttles by hand-held rockets using "sleeper agents" on Earth. That is just nonsense. The entire concept that you can "reboot" the main computer system to take control and turn everyone into citizens of Elysium is also fairly ludicrous.
The ending where everyone indeed suddenly becomes citizens of Elysium is just plain dumb. They send down a couple of automated shuttles and they are supposed to heal and fix everyone? And what about the fact that Earth was supposed to be ruined in the first place? As I write, just dumb.
This is just another nonsense movie with a "social message" that got way too much money from Hollywood. The only reason it didn't get an even lower rating is because there are some nice special effects and action scenes in it. That and the acting is not bad. Matt Damon & Co does as well as can be expected with this nonsense script.