An alright film based around a totally illogical plot line

Rating: 6/10 (1 September 2014)

The central theme around this film seems to be that the illegal immigrants from Earth are trying to get to Elysium not to live there but simply to get cured in one of their magical medical pods. Naturally the notion of them trying to live there would be absurd because they are all dressed in rags, covered in filth, have no home or money and wouldn't be recognised by any of the locals. The equivalent would be someone crossing the Mexican-American border and then heading straight to a gated community in Beverly Hills without so much as dusting down their jeans... they are going to stand out.
The people on Elysium would have to know this. Therefore it seems that they could cut down on the illegal influx and the crime that it creates 100% by simply not hogging all the magical medical machines. I mean if they said they were alien technology or required a one million dollar fission coil per use then it would make sense.
Instead they seem to be so commonplace and cheap to run that every single household has one. Just how many life threatening illnesses and injuries do the people of Elysium pick up every single day? Given that it cures you in less than a minute you think each town would just need one of the things. Maybe two in cold season. It vaguely mentions that people on Elysium do not age and so the assumption is that the pod keeps you young through daily use. Why then the entire business and political elite of Elysium are played by actors and actresses in their fifties is a mystery.
Ultimately it seems that if they just stuck a couple of these magical machines on Earth people would stop trying to get to Elysium in the first place and they would just keep to themselves. It would be in the best interests of the citizens to pay for them to be built on Earth. Instead everyone on Elysium seem to be the direct descendants of Nazis. I mean if the CEO of the robot building company just had one of the damn things in the factory to treat work related injuries (like lethal radiation exposure) it would increase productivity dramatically and there would be no more sick leave. Whatshisface wouldn't have needed to even go to the hospital for his broken arm then and would have been at work sooner. Yes the assumption is that labour is very cheap and inexhaustible but they must have skilled labourers which it would be easier to heal than replace and retrain. Then again why the workforce is even human to begin with when they have so many robots to hand is also a mystery.
There is no logical reason to withhold the technology other than for the purposes of evil. Wanting to live a luxury life with a clean atmosphere is fine but are they only happy so long as Earth is filled with untold suffering and misery? The really baffling bit occurs towards the end when they deploy three enormous medical ships with dozens of these magical medical machines down to Earth at the drop of a hat. Why would a space station in which the nearest medical pod is never going to be more than twenty foot away need a fleet of ships capable of treating a hundred people at a time? The only logical assumption is in case of emergency but just how many hundred car pile ups is this gated community expecting on a daily basis to justify that? A ship with one or two pods on like a rapid response paramedic sure but not something capable of responding to a daily Titanic disaster...
When they reprogram the space station at the end it isn't so that everyone from Earth can come live there but so they can all get access to this rapid cure. Of course if it did prolong your life and reverse aging then this would only be adding to the overpopulation issue but so be it. Oh and whilst we are on the subject of dying...
The medical pod can cure someone with half their head blown off ten minutes after they are dead but if someone gets their throat slit or gets shot in the chest then its game over? What is the point in having enormous medical aid ships and satellites monitoring your heart rate when you don't have a single poxy robot to come pick you up when you bleed out? Also I don't fully comprehend the point of a neurological encryption system that lets you copy the data completely but then kills you afterwards. Or indeed one that paralyses you. Surely it should do this before you attempt to access the data? You can buy a USB stick today which burns the memory chip with explosives if you type in the wrong password three times. It doesn't let you copy all the data and then explode...
The medical pods issue needed explaining better. If there was an expensive running cost after the initial purchase then you could understand them not sharing the tech however it seems to just use electricity. Hell an MRI is a pretty costly piece of machinery but every public hospital still has one. If there is an expensive running cost that uses a lot of power or resources of some kind then letting everyone in the world have a go in one just isn't going to be practical or possible.
Basically either everyone is a Nazi for electricity usage or there physically isn't enough power in the world to heal everyone. Either way it is weak and illogical.
Essentially in order to take this film seriously you basically have to completely ignore the main plot point... and a whole host of other things. That's never a good sign.