Well, it made for smart science fiction, dumb social commentary.

There was a lot of great blink-and-you'll-miss-them concepts. Did anyone notice that the rifle Max picked up on Elysium had "Chemrail" stenciled on the side? Did anyone notice that it shorted out and was rendered useless when the fire extinguishers went out? Did anyone realize that it was probably a rail gun with a powder cartridge 'starter'?

Well, in general, I'd say that Niell does a better job of visualizing futuristic weapons than the guys at 343i, but that's terribly unfair to Niell. Anyhow, just about every weapon in the movie is completely awesome, like the disk-shaped seeker mines that Kruger used early in the movie. BLAM! Or an AKM loaded with smart munitions (I'm almost certain that the AKM was chambered for a larger caliber. Or maybe Matt Damon is just smaller than I think)

Speaking of Kruger, I was completely surprised that he survived his head asploding, but I guess Elysium shares some tech with Schlock Mercenary. Not only do they have hyper-advanced medical kits that can heal anything, but I'll bet that Kruger was augmented specifically to survive massive trauma like that.

OK, the social commentary... I'd hesitate to say that it's clueless, but I'm not sure what else to say. It's not idealistic, it's simplistic. "The Elites have this awesome medical technology that can cure any disease, but they're hoarding it for themselves and using it for petty cosmetic surgery". It's a cockamamie, Mother Jones sort of... Well, to quote Howard Taylor, "...the didacticisms were flimsy straw-men that did a disservice to all sides of any arguments."

OK, from what we've seen, the medical tubes are tweaked Star Trek Replicators. We weren't shown any costs for their use: no massive energy expenditures, no special phlebotinum to rebuild the body with, nothing. Apparently, they're relatively cheap enough that every house has one (Possibly to counteract the effects of hard radiation, but that's just my guess).

So, the question the movie should have answered is why these aren't available to the general public. It would be somewhat interesting if the briefly-mentioned longevity treatments that the medikits were capable of were the reason. Earth is already overcrowded, and the last thing we need is every Tom, Dick, and Maria living to 200.

And the real question that nobody has asked but probably should have: Are these medikits keyed only to one gender for no rational reason whatsoever, or does one have to fiddle with the menu to have an alien abomination aborted?

The biggest failure of the movie, in my opinion, is that it's supposed to take place in our future... but I can't even conceive of how a culture like this could have arisen. I can't imagine how Ayn Rand's wet dream could have resulted in such a sharp technological divide. Yes, she has problems, but would ANY capitalist with half a brain ignore such a massive market?

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So, as I was walking out of the theater with my brother (Who hated District 9), I said that I gave the film 6/10. He apparently liked it more than I did, and called it cheap entertainment.
*shrugs*

We never do see eye-to-eye on this stuff. = )