Elysium

Elysium (2013)

Image From IMDB

Elysium was Neill Blomkamps next movie after the fantastic fan favourite District 9, and in my opinion was brutally overlooked by most. The box-office was actually okay, despite many considering it a flop, and the much maligned screenplay, while maybe lacking at the time, easily stands up against most modern movie. It had incredible world building, and a theme we can all understand with the symbolic image of the rich and powerful floating over Earth.

Elysium follows the story of Max. An orphan kid living in the slums down on Earth who just wants to be living the life up on Elysuim where they have all the latest advancements in technology and none of Earth’s pesky problems. When an incident at work leads to him getting a full blast of radiation, he only has five days left to live. The medical machines on Elysium could fix him, but he’s got to get there first…

While much of the film could be considered depressing as the Earth really is a shithole, and the rich really are living the life, there’s so many unique things on screen at any given moment to keep you interested and distracted from the misery. The robot police are savage. The factory Max’s works couldn’t be more emblematic of the times. The weapons are once again awesome. Max’s exosuit is badass, and looks incredibly uncomfortable. And Sharlto Copley is once again having a riot, this time as evil scumbag, Kruger.

Matt Damon gives a solid performance as Max and fits the genre well, while Diego Luna, Wagner Moura and Alice Braga all offer support on his journey to the gorgeous space stations orbiting the planet. Jodie Foster plays Delacourt, the secretary of defence for the elite ring, and her callous attitudes towards the non-citizens of Elysium makes her the perfect antagonist for the story, even if Kruger is the main physical threat.

It’s a gorgeous movie in a lot of ways. The cinematography, costume designs, and sets, are all incredible. It has part of that documentary feel that made District 9 so unique, but without it being that this time round. The satire is still there with the whole Elysium connotations and the way the film portrays the rich, but it isn’t commented on as much as Blomkamps former effort.

The action in the film looks great, and the special efforts standup extremely well. We really have gone backwards with CGI these last few years. The chase set piece when they shoot the ship down on Earth is probably the standout set piece, but the plane shootout is the thing you will remember, thanks to Copley eating a grenade. The whole migration ship arriving was tense and horrible to watch too, while being fascinating in its politics and eventual coldness.

Overall, I think it’s a really good movie that got lost in the shuffle. One that will be looked back upon differently. It is cynical, and not as fun as District 9, so maybe it wasn’t quite what people wanted at the time, but as a sci-fi concept and movie I don’t think there’s anything missing from it.