Bad. Just bad.

Rating: 6/10 (26 September 2013)

I REALLY wanted this movie to be better. I got suckered in by the previews, and that always irks me. I really like some of the visions Blomkamp has. His exoskeleton suit was awesome, but I really don't think they bothered to explain why it made him faster, stronger, etc. I have seen more than my fair share of sci-fi, so I didn't need much explanation, but my date didn't get it at ALL. The Kalashnikov was cool too, but I'd rather just see a movie of all of these things in action, the whole time. The back story was ... bad. And some of the important technical aspects of the sci-fi seem to have been overlooked. How did the people on Elysium breathe? There didn't seem to be anything keeping the atmosphere in the ring. Even with the weapon advancements I saw, I don't expect a shoulder fired missile to be able to take down a target almost 20 miles away. If that existed, why aren't people just taking pot shots AT Elysium whenever they are having a really bad day? How did she establish a no-fly zone? Did she just tell everyone to stop flying, and they said ... OK? If her daughter hadn't been sick, would that have meant he wasn't inspired to go to Elysium? I could go on and on, but it seems like it was just poorly written, and the '4' I rated it indicates my feeling on it.
I would love to see Cameron and Blomkamp work together. I really like some of the vision they bring to the screen, but Blomkamp needs to step back and quit trying to tell us about poverty in South Africa. We get it. And you suck at story-telling. And as much as I liked him in D9, it was really hard not to find Kruger almost like an unwelcome houseguest.
Not a good date movie, because the movie was just bad. We both left the theater with an odd look on our faces. ... I wish we'd gone to see Pacific Rim, instead.