Elysium

My year in the cinema shows no signs of improvement. Step forward Elysium. The concept was promising, the delivery underwhelming. The fatal mistake was made when the movie made its choice of chief villain. Global capitalism? No. Jodie Foster's weird psuedo-French government agent? No. According to this enemy, the real enemy to be defeated in the working-class's fight for justice is a deranged South African rogue soldier who is very antagonistic towards women and children, even sick children. Who among us doesn't hate such a person, after all? Yeah, that's right, beat him up! He more than anyone else deserves it! A villain, sure, but one bought on the cheap.

In the end, what could have been a story worth telling ends up being little more than a story worth millions of dollars because it has, you know, cool action scenes and stuff. What it doesn't have are characters. As Mr Wolf once almost said, just because you are supposed to have characters doesn't mean you have characters. Everyone in this film is therefore completely uninteresting. Justice may be at stake, but it is really hard to care.