Elysium

I just finished watching Elysium at work.  (Fuck having to 'work' on Christmas Eve!)

This was a pretty good sci fi flick.  In the 22nd century, there is an orbiting space station 'Elysium' that is a utopia.  Everyone is rich and healthy and lives long lives.  Earth, however, is a shit hole.

Matt Damon plays 'Max'.  Orphaned as a child, he befriends Frey (Alice Braga - the chick in Predators) and promises to one day take them to Elysium.  As an adult, Max is a reformed felon who is trying to get his life together.  Working in a factory, Max has an accident (200 days without an accident goes to Hell!) and is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation.  He has 5 days to live.  The rest of the movie is spent building Max into a robot and trying to get him to Elysium to get cured.

The first hour of this movie would have gotten 5 out of 5 Raptor's Claws!  The sci fi and special effects are top notch, and the scenes on Earth and Elysium are great.  Earth is a run down POS (as you imagine it will be in a couple hundred years), while Elysium is a perfect society.  I think Matt Damon does a pretty good job in a genre that he isnt really used to.  I also think Alice Braga (although not a bad ass in this movie like she is in Predators) will be setting herself up for more starring roles in the future.

However, the movie takes a bit of a dive.  Jodie Foster (who, I have to admit Ive never really liked much as an actress anyway) sucks donkey as the nasty security twat on Elysium.  Some other guy (other, as in, Jodie Foster is a guy too!!) plays some sort of special forces (?) operative that lives on Earth...wtf, I dont even know how to explain it....but he has a terrible accent (South African?) and is pretty much a douchebag as an actor and a bad guy.  I also feel like the story takes kind of a crappy turn - runs out of gas - and the end of the movie turns into "Real Steel".

I think this is pretty much my review of District 9 too (another Neill Blomkamp film)!

I give it 3 out of 5 Raptor's Claws!  Worth a rental for sure, especially if you like sci fi flicks, but I hope you didnt waste your money in the theater to see it!!