DIRECTOR: Neil Blomkamp
CAST: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, William Fichtner, Faran Tahir, Emma Tremblay, Jose Pablo Cantillo
RUNNING TIME: 109 mins
CERTIFICATE: 15
BASICALLY… On a desecrated Earth, a dying man (Damon) tries to reach the space station of Elysium, the home of the rich, in order to cure his illness…
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NOW FOR THE REVIEW…
Unlike his previous film District 9, which was warmly received by many critics and even ended up with a few Oscar nominations, Neil Blomkamp’s sophomore feature Elysium is set to be a divisive work of art. There are going to be people who adore it as much as they did District 9, and those who feel that it’s a step backwards from that film. Sadly, the official Film Feeder verdict is that of the latter, though it does have some worthwhile moments in it as well.
Like many blockbuster films of recent, Elysium features non-stop action set-pieces which although impressive leaves very little room for much else, particularly in story and especially character. Not since last year’s Dredd has there been anything close to a violent, sweary adult action sci-fi, and it is very refreshing to see such visuals in a family-dominated summer even if they are at times hard to see due to its constant use of the shaky cam motif. However, Dredd and also District 9 had more balance between action and character; here, the bar tips more in the favour of one over the other and it becomes a hollow product as a result.
Matt Damon, reliable as always, does the best that he can with his simplistic hero character, while Sharlto Copley appears to be having the most fun as the mercenary antagonist who is literally written to be the most despicable person ever concocted by a screenwriter that it begins to get unintentionally funny – he’s described as a murderer and rapist among other things by other characters, to let us know just how evil he is. However, the weakest link in the main cast is Jodie Foster who not only takes on her role as defence secretary Delacourt with the year’s most undefinable accent (British? French? South African? High-class American?) but plays it like a campy, over-the-top caricature.
Incidentally, “over-the-top” is the perfect word to describe most of the characters in this film. Putting aside Damon’s Max, already established as the simplistic hero, the inhabitants of the slum-like residences of Earth and the well-off snobs who occupy the fancy Elysium seem to really go for it without cooling down. For instance, Wagner Moura’s Earth-bound criminal mastermind Spider tends to shout most if not all of his lines while moving about the place on a walking stick. He’s like a combination of Charlie Day and Burn Gorman’s comic relief characters in Pacific Rim, but in that film they were likable and tolerable whereas here it’s a failed attempt at comic relief. William Fichtner also shows up to ham it in as a factory owner, even going so far as to disgustingly tell a floor manager to not breathe on him. There is even a dying child character who tells a story about animals to our main character – once more hitting the film’s obvious allegorical satire on the nose – that is painfully cringe worthy to sit through. The director of District 9, reduced to cheesy children’s stories.
Despite the forced contrivance, Blomkamp does have some gravitas behind the camera. Cleverly separating the different classes with shaky cam styles for the Earth scenes and still, swift camera movements on Elysium, he establishes the environments well enough for us to understand. Once again, he uses the sci-fi elements to establish a satirical commentary on immigration and class divide in today’s world. Although it may be painfully obvious to some, the basic morals of social acceptance are fully present – it just happens to have an exoskeleton Matt Damon ripping the heads of robots. And if that isn’t powerful stuff, what is?
SO, TO SUM UP…
While not even close to a patch on Blomkamp’s 2009 debut, and with a lesser story and character focus than that film, Elysium is still a satisfying enough sci-fi tale that has one too many hit-and-miss moments that do and don’t work.
