Elysium

ELYSIUM

Director : Neill Blomkamp

Year : 2013

Genre : Science Fiction

Rating : **1/2

Despite it's extremely impressive visual style and well chosen star studded cast, 'Elysium' is a big budget disappointment from director Neill Blomkamp. While carrying a healthy amount of political subtext and social commentary, the movie fails to live up to the promise created by the filmmakers' feature film debut, the fantastic 'District 9' and thanks to a dreary script, barely developed characters and an overemphasis on computer graphics, 'Elysium' quickly becomes a good looking but rather tedious affair. Full of interesting ideas and superb effects, the movie works well on paper but fails to translate into anything special on screen and with a running time of nearly two hours, 'Elysium' will be a challenge for even the hardest of science fiction fans. It isn't totally without merit and Matt Damon is pretty good as the charismatic central protagonist but when all is said and done, it adds up to little more than another generic sci - fi film that is much better in concept than in execution.

Set in 2154, 'Elysium' tells of a future that is dominated by class and social standings. Due to pollution and global warming, the planet has become a breeding ground for disease and poverty and the poor are slowly succumbing to the pestilence that has taken a savage hold of the Earth. To seek sanctuary from the illness and poverty, the wealthy have abandoned our world and have moved to man made habitat called Elysium; a giant spaceship like ecosystem that bathes in beauty, peace and complete immunity from disease. 

Back on Earth, Max (Damon) is a lowly man who works for a company that builds the robot policemen that now tyrannically govern the streets of the planet. One day he falls victim to a terrible accident and after experiencing a high level of radiation exposure, Max is told that he has a mere few days left to live. However, he is a resilient man who is determined not to die and vows to break into the seemingly impenetrable Elysium where technology exists that can cure him of his sickness in minutes. Unfortunately, the journey to the giant spaceship costs a lot of money and to earn enough to gain entry to Elysium, Max must become a tool of a crime boss to rob the habitat of it's power and wealth; an action that may finally bring equality to those on Earth and revenge to those hiding like cowards on the sub-planet.

Neill Blomkamp is one of the better science fiction directors working today and thanks to his brilliant 2009 epic 'District 9', he has become one of the most respected filmmakers currently working in the genre. Made for $30 million, 'District 9' was able to tell a story that was both entertaining and cinematic while also acting as a very potent social commentary. Flipping the coin, 'Elysium' was made for nearly $120 million and despite a bigger budget and while still containing a fair amount of subtext, the story and the characters are poorly developed and the narrative is much more basic, therefore making the movie drag and the experience a rather tiresome one. Blomkamp of course can't be blamed for the quality of the screenplay and as a director, he shines with brilliant camera work and an eye for great action set pieces. Unfortunately, the admittedly awe inspiring special effects do seem to take precedence over the characters or the plot and as a result, we are pushed away from the film rather than being drawn into the evocative cinematography and captivating mise en scene created by director of photography Ryan Amon. 

Abruptly changing from an interesting science fiction tome into a rather substandard action thriller, 'Elysium' quickly loses its train of thought and the carefully constructed social commentary quickly becomes lost amongst a sea of overblown fight scenes and sketched out characters.It is clear that Blomkamp has intriguing ideas up his sleeve and maybe given a different premise or a better screenplay, his ideologies could have been conveyed on screen to greater effect. It is true that he is a filmmaker of opinions and zeitgeists and I am sure that in the future, he is going to deliver a science fiction film that will be considered a seminal work and dangerously close to home. But unfortunately 'Elysium' isn't that movie. I can't say I was truly disappointed with the film, but I certainly left the cinema feeling ambivalent towards it. The acting isn't particularly impressive and I can't say that the story really intrigued me in any way. The concepts of the movie are great and the design of the titular space station is very Kubrick-ian but as a piece, 'Elysium' doesn't quite fall completely into place and it is obvious that Blomkamp still has a way to go before he can emulate the love felt towards his much more superior 'District 9'.