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I'm not sure what to say about this film.
I did like Matt Damon. While his character was never as complex or interesting as it should have been (and his end was so cliche and boring as to have been written by a 13 year old), still Damon did as much as he could with the character. The same is also true of Sharlto Copely and Jodie Foster, who at least seemed to have fun with their characters. Sadly, everyone else is ridiculously ill-defined (or just plain boring) as to be nothing more than cardboard cutouts of ideas the writer never attempted to flesh out. (William Fichtner was an unexpected surprise, but then again he often is.)
I did like the very lived in world that Blomkamp created. Sadly we never see enough of it to warrant the insane budget for such a simplistic film (how this move cost 90-110 million is beyond me, especially since Blomkamp made a similar scale film in 'District 9' with a budget only 1/4 the size of 'Elysiums'.
The action sequences were sub-par to non-existent (with none of the spontaneity or freshness of 'District 9'), making the whole premise of the super suit fundamentally meaningless (though the scene in which the suit is strapped to Matt Damon was quite horrifyingly beautiful).
The dialogue was quite terrible at times.
The overarching themes were so in my face as to cause my eyes to cross.
Overall, the visual quality of this picture is one of its only real redeeming qualities. I know sophomore efforts are often a great struggle, especially for such a visual director, but Elysium was a complete misstep. 60/100.
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