It took me 4 years to get around to watching Neill Blomkamp’s film Elysium (2013) starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alica Braga, and Sharlto Copley.
In the year 2154, the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth. A man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds.
Okay, can I summarize with spoilers? Some apocalypse has occurred resulting in the poor and middle-class living on Earth, while the filthy rich have moved to an orbital space station paradise. While the poor toil away on earth in poverty in menial jobs (or stealing), the rich have mansions and water and grass and miraculous bio-beds that can heal any ailment. And people down on the planet can’t have access. The rich control the lower classes using robots. And people do try to sneak onto the station but station security usually shoots them down. Because they’re evil.
Now I get the class warfare, but the bio-beds don’t make a lot of sense. People aren’t trying to sneak onto the station to pretend to be “citizens.” They only want access to a bio-bed to get healed. It doesn’t seem to cost anything, so why are they hoarded? It’s a plot hole a mile wide.
Matt Damon’s character gets a terminal dose of radiation, and agrees to participate in a heist, in order for a ticket to sneak onto the station and use a bio-bed. During the heist, we get introduced to Sharlto Copley’s Kruger, who morphes from being a hired thug to the major villain. I don’t know why he became more than a hired goon. It didn’t make any sense.
There are other characters who seem to change their complete motivation when the plot requires them, which also didn’t make any sense. There are a number of interesting ideas in this film, but too many interesting ideas.
Elysium (2013)