Saw a late showing of the new Matt Damon sci-fi flick Elysium… a movie I was looking forward to as it was the follow-up to the director’s previous movie District 9 (which I didn’t think was as amazing as some but found solid).

I was fairly disappointed by this movie – the pacing of scenes and events was off, things felt rushed and disjointed, action was way the hell too shaky cam, and the movie’s sci-fi was so basically clueless and essentially magic that it lost the ability to be taken seriously.

It’s also trying to be a political message movie about the haves and have-nots (and universal healthcare, I suppose) but since the disparities and magical tech and medicine was so extreme, it felt wholly unbelievable that this society would exist like it does… and since almost nobody on the magic space station Elysium has any backstory, personality, or basic lines of dialog, you never gain insight into why the disparity exists (I guess we’re supposed to just thinking “rich people are evil” and walk away feeling all proud of our collectivist hatred of wealthy people…).

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not hating on this movie for having a message or political opinion, I have a problem with the hamfisted and clueless way it presented it and, more to the point, the poor story structure/theme that they hung it on.

Hell, I’m not really hating on the movie – it’s a good looking movie that’s watchable on many levels… but on a basic script and film making level, it has a lot of flaws.

Score: 76