Elysium (2013)
Certified: 15
Duration: 109 minutes
Directed by: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, William Fichtner, Brandon Auret, José Pablo Cantillo, Faran Tahir
KRS release
Elysium was a film I was really waiting for. In 2009, under Peter Jackson’s guidance, Neill Blomkamp had delivered District 9, which was a mix between science fiction and social parable.
Elysium confirms the strengths of Blomkamp’s direction in this socially-tinged sci-fi tale with strong and impressive visuals that serve to patch up the inherent limitations of the story.
He also shows that rather than following Jackson’s footsteps, he is more inthe vein of James Cameron, and lets the visuals and the action do the talking.
In the year 2154, the world is a very different place. Los Angeles is a slum city, a shanty town. Max (Matt Damon) is an ex-convict and he makes a living working in an assembly plant making robots. He is one of the underprivileged workers and masses that populate the world. Meanwhile, high above the world there is Elysium, a space station where the rich, perfect and privileged live and rule. Here no one ever gets sick and problems do not exist. The rule of law is kept strong by the Secretary of Defence, Delacourt (Jodie Foster).
From earth’s side, illegal immigrants try to make their way to Elysium but Kruger (Sharlto Copley), one of Delacourt’s men, makes sure these are shot down before arrival. President Patel (Faran Tahir) does not approve of these tactics but can do little.
This film provides summer box-office entertainment but goes beyond being another exercise in special effects
Meanwhile, Julio (Diego Luna) wants Max’s help to steal cars. He also brings into play Max’s long-time friend Frey (Alice Braga).
Max has already had his run-in with the law and does not want to return to prison. All this changes when he is exposed to radiation at the workplace and he asks an ex-associate of his, Spider (Wagner Moura), for the chance to go to Elysium and get the necessary treatment. In return for his help, Spider wants Max to get him corporate information.
Frey wishes to go along too because of her sick daughter Matilda (Emma Tremblay).
So Max sets out, equipped with an exoskeleton. This will be a race to the finish where the stakes are high indeed.
From the start of the film, Blomkamp never ceases to wow his audience in the way with action sequences recalling Michael Bay’s military fetish. However, it is the space station that pins down the audience.
Under all the sci-fi aspiration, the film also offers a vision of the future as a parable of the times we live in – especially as regards the sense of economic disparity that the financial woes are creating.
It is a sense of the great divide between the elite and the normal workingman, the sense of utopia being only for the privileged and how, from the time of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, science fiction has always been the purveyor of social revolution in the way it delivered warnings of how the future will turn out to be.
Damon plays the perfect everyman to take up the mantle of the hero of the downtrodden.
Foster, meanwhile, is the ideal villain: classy, cool and aloof. She has the standoffish attitude that only those who have looked from above at the masses below can ever have.
This film provides summer box-office entertainment but goes beyond being just another exercise in special effects: it actually has something to say.