Neil Blomkamp, writer and director of 2009’s District 9, is back with a new disturbing look into a dystopian future with Elysium. Set in the year 2154, two classes of people exist: The very wealthy, who live in a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. The people of Earth, desperate to leave their crime and poverty ridden planet, need to use the state-of-the-art medical care up on Elysium. But certain people on the paradise space station will stop at nothing to enforce the anti-immigration laws that keep the rich citizens with their luxuries. With his life hanging in balance, Max (Matt Damon) will risk everything to get to Elysium, not only to save his own life, but millions of people of earth.
The movie is conceptually bold, occasionally engaging with thoughts and promise, but ultimately bland with no new ideas. Not saying it’s not an enjoyable movie, because it is, it’s just, you’ve seen better. Whereas the trailer looks to promise a story about how one man can change the world, it ends up being a film with a series of standard gun battles, lots of explosions, extremely close calls, and standard tough-guy fight scenes. All interest and hope for something new are soon washed away in a succession of generic content.
First and foremost, Matt Damon is really good. He carries the movie well and plays a charming character we want to see having his happy ending. He plays an ex-con who clearly has made mistakes and is trying to better himself in a world that just won’t let him. We see him struggle, and that’s relatable to the viewers. We can understand what he goes through. His fight scenes are lackluster, but that’s a character decision on Damon’s part; his character, Max, has no fight training whatsoever. So when he messes up or doesn’t know what he’s doing, it’s very believable.
The rest of the cast do their jobs well, of course, some are clearly better than others. Sharlto Copley plays Agent Kruger, who works for Elysium’s Secretary of Defense Delacourt (Jodie Foster). Copley looks like he’s having a good time playing a ruthless, bloodthirsty character who takes massive amounts of pleasure in hurting people. Not helping is Copley’s hardened South African accent, which makes much of his dialogue difficult to decipher, even though his intents are obvious. He is a two-dimensional thug character at best, but because his acting is fun to watch, you forgive the lack of development.
Jodie Foster on the other hand looks like she could have been anywhere else. Her role comes across as boring and not wanting to be there. She is the evil behind all of the movie’s trouble, but she does so little that when she pops back up, you’d have already forgotten that she was there to begin with. Her character could have been so much better with just a bit more screen time. She’s all official business and ambition as the stereotypically devious politician. Foster also makes some odd acting choices in her use of accent and dialogue that comes across as a little girl play acting during recces. For a two time Academy Award winner for best actress, I expected more.
The special effects are really good and serve their purpose well. The spacecrafts all look good and are designed well. Each spacecraft matched the environment it comes from. I thought it was a nice touch. The ones from Earth look put together by hand and could fall apart at any second, while the Elysium crafts are sleek and dripping with wealth. The Elysium space station is beautiful. We only get to see it a few times, but when we do, it’s is a breathtaking design. It definitely makes you “want to go to there”.
The robots that patrol Earth and protect the citizens of Elysium are the best special effects in the movie. They look real and have a great organic flow to their movements. I have to assume it’s a nice mix of CGI and motion capture. They look so good that as far I’m concerned they were real robots. Their fight scenes are cool and they have a very scary look about them. Again, hands down, best effect in the flick.
The exo-suits are a big presence in the movie. They’re on the poster, in the trailer, and the studio even had them walking around at Comic-Con. Most people know that Damon has to put one on to survive. Even Copley has to put one on for the final fight scene. Throughout the movie, we keep getting told how good they are and what they can do. But we never get to see any of that. Damon never really figures his out and when he does do something cool with it, it was a happy accident for the character. And Copley only wears his for such a short time, you’d think “Why bother?” For an item that seems to be so important to the flick, it just felt like it never got its due.
At the end of the day, Elysium isn’t a bad movie, just not a fully thought out one. It has so many big ideas going for it: The dystopian future, race/class war, exo-suits, space travel, etc. It’s unfortunate that many of the ideas fall to wayside early on turning the movie into a standard science fiction film we’ve seen many times. I think most people can still have a good time and will enjoy themselves, just go in with low expectations.