Elysium
Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga, Sharlto Copley, Diego Luna, William Fitchner
Directed By: Neil Blomkamp
Reviewed by Danielle Muir
[rating: 3.5/5]
After the brilliance of District 9, all eyes were on Blomkamp’s next move – with a one million dollar budget and more resources than he could ever dream off, could Blomkamp deliver the goods?
In terms of visual effects and the creation of a dystopic world, it’s virtually unrivalled – CGI shuttles blur the line between effects and reality, and the infrastructure of Elysium is spectacular. The separation of lower and higher class raises some very intriguing points and aren’t totally unforeseeable in the future, such as a machine that can eradicate all illness (and Elysium’s unwillingness to share this with Earth’s sickly inhabitants), or what will come as a result of overpopulation. Blomkamp has indeed planted the seed in viewer’s minds that how the classes have split is actually very feasible. People could really do that to other people.
Unfortunately at its core is where the film falters. Matt Damon plays reformed car thief turned factory drone Max, who’s dreamt all his life of one day making it up to Elysium – a giant star-shaped infrastructure where all higher class citizens have now vacated to in order to keep their manicured lifestyles. After an incident in the factory infects Max with a lethal dose of radiation, he ends up rigged to a nasty contraption and gets some very important data downloaded into his noggin – all the while going up against a corrupt Elysium security guard Delacourt (Jodie Foster) who wants the top job.
The problem is Elysium is quite devoid of likeable characters. Max is inherently selfish for 99.9% of the film, and even when his character does do the inevitable backflip it seems like it’s because Blomkamp had to make him do it rather than a believable progression. Sure, there’s a little girl with Leukemia who tugs a few heartstrings (how could she not) and her mother, Max’s childhood friend Frey (Braga) doesn’t really have much of a personality other than someone to be saved. Sharlto Copley starts of brilliant as the despicable, dirty military grunt Kruger, but eventually his lines turn into such a cliché that all effect is lost. And don’t get me started on Foster’s shoddy British accent.
Despite an intense lack of emotional connection Elysium is more entertaining than your average blockbuster and there’s never a dull moment. The action sequences are very well crafted and the world Blomkamp’s created makes the brain tick. But when it’s over there feels like a chunk of something missing, and I’m pretty sure it was that I didn’t care for the characters very much at all.