Realistic future but mind-numbing violence & poor script

Rating: 5/10 (30 January 2014)

Spoiler alert for the thin skinned.
Although this movie has a promising start, it rapidly deteriorates into nothing but mind numbing senseless violence & killings with almost no dialogue or story for 80% of the movie. (best if you fast forward through the mindless killings). It is clear the director & writer are totally clueless that you can't carry a movie based solely on pointless violence & gore like some old B grade western or war movie. Quite frankly, we are sick of it.
Sci-fi fans want an engrossing story with compelling characters, adventure, exploration, challenges & discovery with pristine, futuristic architecture & glass towers filled with awe inspiring futuristic technology, progress & gadgets (like Oblivion, Total Recall (the original), I Robot, 6th day, Moon, etc.) This meager excuse for a story & plot fails to generate any audience sympathy for the "victims" in this movie who are mostly the have-not's consisting of thugs & gangs; overrun with immigrants, hordes of unruly petty thief children (an obvious need of birth control) and generations of self concentered dregs of society wallowing in the debris without lifting a finger to repair, clean, maintain or contribute to their community while blaming the have's for their lot in life. Like locusts consuming everything until it becomes a decaying wasteland then moving on to destroy the next green patch. (Like Idiocracy & Wall-E).
While this is clearly one of the most realistic, likely renditions of Earth's near future, it fails to induce any audience compassion for their situation. Who would root for these dregs to gain control so they can turn the orbiting paradise into another wasteland while they lie around, taking from others, gratifying their indulgences, expecting someone else to clean & maintain it.
When the have-not's endeavor to access the orbiting paradise of the have's; (tantamount to watching drug lords & thugs crossing the borders), we find ourselves rooting for the wealthy have's to shoot down the undeserving disenfranchised. Which is the reverse of the intended plot.
This poorly written story would be analogous to expecting the audience to cheer for hordes of murderous escaped prison inmates plundering & killing Beverly Hills celebrities. Destroying elegant mansions to cure themselves & their progeny does not give credence or promote sympathy for their actions.
The medical theme wasn't enough. The medical care could have been obtained without turning over the asylum to the inmates & Jodie's character could have had a better role in this. Thus, the writer & director failed to sell the plot to the audience.
Scarcely little is seen of this orbiting paradise, the inhabitants or technology, which should have been the key point of interest for a Sci-fi movie. Not scenes like "Escape from NY".
The failure to focus more scenes on the futuristic orbital Eden, it's upper crust society & high tech gadgets was clearly a wasted opportunity which would have been an improvement to the nonstop killing & violence between a bunch of thugs (aka Robocop).
Jodie & Matt's talents were wasted on shallow character themes, poor dialogue & absurd story lines we might expect to see written by some no talent preteen. The actors did their best with what they had to work with.
The director & writer failed to engage the audience in connecting with any of the characters or their plights. Who would feel sorry for a bunch of self-serving thugs? The audience also has very little tolerance for character stupidity, self consumed arrogance, needless deaths and a medical device that can restore an entire head blown away by a grenade but can't handle a little brain damage. Not to mention basing the entire movie on the main characters race to undo a death sentence from an unbelievably stupid act, only to crap out his character after forcing the audience to endure 2 hours of senseless violence to get there. Guaranteed to PO the audience.
For sci-fi movies in general, it seems all the writers & directors of the past 15 years use violence, battles & killings as scene fillers to compensate for their lack of imagination & inability to create a compelling story without using violence and grimy dark basements and dregs of society.
I hope these writers & directors are reading these commentaries since we are all telling them the same thing. We're sick of the violence & battles. We need engaging stories of exploration, discovery, adventure, accomplishment, compelling characters of good integrity, pristine futuristic architecture in the daylight, utopic societies, fantastic high-tech gadgets & some decent aliens who aren't trying to kill us.