Elysium: A gated community with one hell of a HOA

Rating: 7/10 (11 August 2013)

Elysium was by no means what I had hoped for but was an enjoyable theater experience nonetheless for any SciFi nerd. The CG was superb and the set and design teams did an amazing job. Overall the acting was effective, primarily from Jodie Foster(Delacourt) and Sharlto Copley(Kruger), complimented by the rest of the cast who were fairly believable in their roles.
Where Elysium falls short is primarily in the story. There were so many plot holes that it actually began to hinder me from completely enjoying the film. Truth be told its a SciFi and plot holes are expected but in abundance can become overwhelming. *********SPOILERS BELOW*************
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My biggest grudge with the film was why the inhabitants of Elysium horded the machines that were capable of curing any physical ailment. You would think a machine of such capabilities would be hard to come by or cost some unforeseen toll for using it. Unfortunately, they appear in the film as a standard household appliance. Not only that, the machines work in mere seconds!! The film even contradicted itself having Med shuttles with over 30 machines in them. If every house already has one of these machines, it works instantly, there is no war on Elysium, and the main concern in keeping Elysium secure is keeping the inhabitants of earth out, why in gods name were these shuttles even created? Better yet, why weren't they already on earth healing people? Even the machines themselves contradicted the purpose of Elysium. Elysium was created because of overpopulation on earth, which inevitably leads to pollution. If you've created a machine that essentially is the fountain of youth, are you not setting yourself up for overpopulation on Elysium?
The idea of Elysium wasn't established to the audience. To me Elysium was nothing more than a gated community for the rich and famous. There were no signs of its actual independence or separation from earth aside from its obvious distance. In fact, it was Elysium that still needed earth. Only by standing on the shoulders of the many could these people reach such positions of power. The inhabitants of earth simply had to go on strike at the factories of these powerful people or boycott their products until their ethical and humane demands of being healed were met. Not only that, if history has taught anyone anything people are willing to go to war for less. Boston Tea Party much?
Another small but annoying plot hole was when Elysium was reset. In resetting itself the film clearly showed the entire place shutting down i.e. losing power, lights, etc. Remember we are living in space on a man made creation with artificial gravity and atmosphere and we've suddenly lost power? Lets just think about this a few seconds...
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Don't let my critical nature prevent anyone from seeing this film in theaters. It really wasn't that bad of a movie. It wasn't as good as Pacific Rim, but the films more positive areas made it reasonably close.
What the film should have done was made living on Elysium itself the very cure to ailments. You have a beautiful man made world with an atmosphere and every other element controlled by humans. The world was essentially pure and could be maintained so, allowing such things as long life and health to be possible. Even faster regeneration from physical trauma could be feasible if explained by mixing certain elements into the atmosphere. To contrast the beautiful world, the entire population of Elysium would have to be ugly. By ugly I mean share similar personality traits like Delacourt and Kruger who abuse the people of earth for their personal gain. X leads to Y and Matt Damon goes to Elysium for whatever reason, but ends up destroying it. The way Elysium is destroyed happens in a way that it is totally disintegrated so it doesn't leave massive debris to be sucked into earths gravitational pull. Instead all that is left from Elysium is a glitter like haze which comes into our atmosphere. The SciFi twist would be the ashes of Elysium inadvertently begin to heal the people of earth.