Following the surprise success of the 2009 Neill Blomkamp directed, Sharlto Copley starring District 9, fans were eager for a follow up.

When it was announced this film would be Elysium and it would star Hollywood A-listers Matt Damon and Jodie Foster along with the returning Mr. Copley and feature a sci-fi premise, anticipation was sky-high.

Was it too high?

To some, the answer would prove to be a resounding “Yes”.  Many fans of Mr. Blomkamp’s District 9 found his follow up lacking, bemoaning problems with the story and, in the case of Jodie Foster, her choice of line delivery.  There was even one critic who listed Elysium among his “worst of the year” films.

As many others, I was curious to see the film.  I liked District 9, though perhaps without the feverish love others had for it.  The commercials for Elysium certainly looked intriguing, with Matt Damon hardwired with an exoskeleton and looking like he could kick some serious ass…

Not bad, I thought.  Not bad at all.

As has become depressingly usual for me, I simply didn’t have the time to catch the film in theaters and had to wait for the home video release to give it a look.  I have.  Did the film deliver or was it the disappointment others felt it was?

The answer to both questions, curiously enough, is “yes”.  The film delivered some really good scenes but I have to agree with others that it was, in the end, a bit of a disappointment…though not quite worthy of being included on any “worst of the year” type lists.

The story goes like this: Worker drone Max (Matt Damon) lives on the squalid Earth while orbiting the planet is the Elysium satellite, the place the rich folks live.  Right away, we’re back in Mr. Blomkamp’s (who also is credited with the screenplay) District 9-like world of the haves and the have-nots.

Max bumps into a childhood friend of his, Frey (Alice Braga), before an accident at his plant irradiates him and leaves him with only five days to live.  Max realizes his only hope for survival lies in somehow getting off Earth and to Elysium, where they have medical beds capable of curing him of his illness.

But getting to Elysium is not an easy task.  A local smuggler agrees to get him on a ship to Elysium provided he steals the memories of a high level industrialist, who coincidentally is Max’s boss at his factory and coldly witnessed Max’s grim medical analysis following his radiation poisoning.  It turns out the industrialist, however, is in cahoots with Delacourt (Jodie Foster) the Secretary of Defense of Elysium, in trying to overthrow the power structure of the satellite.  In his head was a program designed to do just that.

Thus when Max uploads the industrialist’s data into his head, he is suddenly on the run from a fearsome assassin Kruger (Sharlto Copley) while trying to get to Elysium.  He must also deal with the fact that his childhood friend Frey has a young daughter who is dying of leukemia.  Will Max ultimately help Frey’s daughter or will he selfishly try to save himself?

I suspect you already know the answer to this.

Plain and simply, Elysium is a terrific looking movie that features a script that needed some more work.  The cast, for the most part, is certainly game (even Ms. Foster…I’ll get into her performance in a second) and as a director Mr. Blomkamp delivers some very exciting action sequences.  But unlike District 9’s more subtle treatment of the haves vs. the have nots dynamic, Elysium gives it to us with the subtlety of a sledge hammer.  The haves are uncaring in their heaven in the sky while the poor folks live in the dirt and dream of escaping their uncaring hell.

I have to agree with the critics that Jodie Foster delivered an almost bizarre performance/line reading.  It was a curious choice, to be sure.  However, like the other actors in the movie, Ms. Foster didn’t seem to be “slumming” (no pun intended) it.  Her choice of line delivery might not have worked, but she certainly appeared game.  Also, her role was no more than an extended cameo, amounting to not much more than five to ten minutes of total screen time.  Blaming her for the film’s problems is therefore at best misplaced.

Once again I return to the script and its flaws.  In Elysium we have a broad story involving our Earth and an incredibly large satellite for the rich…of which we know almost nothing other than the fact that it is as beautiful as the Earth is grim.  We have a massive satellite that has rivers, mountains, seas and beautiful buildings and a large population…yet somehow does not have any sort of defensive system?

Really?

Why exactly do they have a Secretary of Defense if the satellite has no apparent defensive capability…at least until the “illegals” actual land there?  Add to the fact the too-coincidental meeting between Max and Frey and the daughter that should be called “Plot Point/Hero’s Angst”, the Industrialist who happens to be working on “rebooting” Elysium just as his mind is stolen, Max’s convenient radiation poisoning (which makes him barely able to walk yet when he gets the exo-skeleton he no longer appears to be affected by it much at all) and you begin to feel the film is just a little too manipulative and/or not as well thought out as it should be.

Nonetheless, Elysium is far from a bust.  It is one of those films that are at best “decent” yet could -indeed should– have been far better than it was.  Perhaps that is why it proved to be so frustrating to people.  Had Elysium been made with a no-name cast and featured a no-name director not coming off a smash success, fans might have been a little more tolerant of the finished product.

Regardless and as it stands, Elysium is at best a mild-recommendation for me.  Others might want to skip it.