Elysium

After District 9, Neil Blomkamp deserved my trust on his next film, and I took the mixed reviews on Elysium with a grain of salt.  Having seen it, I think I agree to some extent with Dana Stevens of Slate - a great premise that the story somehow fell short of. Not that it was at all a bad movie - solid 3.5 stars and I will certainly want it on DVD - but it was a 5-star premise.  Some of the protagonist's back-story was a little disjointed, a little obvious, a little perfunctory.  And, like Oblivion, every cross-reference that recalled that back-story should have been lighting up watchers brains, but was instead lighting up the screen spelled out and laboured.

What would I recommend?

1. Less back-story, more rage.  As a stripped down cyber-punk action film like Judge Dredd, this would rock.

2.  More moral murk.  People on earth have every chance (apparently) to practice restraint, to garden earth, but do not. Are they oppressed by the wealthy as part of a strategy or are they just bad? How could letting the whole earth have the Elysium lifestyle work?

3.  More anxiety about the body. Major interventions worked out pretty well throughout.  (I liked the body-mod shop as scariest-ever tattoo parlor scene - 'Yeah its gonna hurt, but it will look cool'). People should be subverted more viciously by this kind of intervention. E.g. Mat Damon's exoskeleton should have some wicked reflexes causing him to be danger to his friends.

4.  More time in this universe.  Sequels, Prequels.  It's a universe with issues.  It will take a few stories to work them all out.  Maybe start with President Spider despairing about overpopulation, their uselessness, the impossibility of education for many and the awful fact of being responsible for everyone.