Neill Blomkamp set a pretty high bar for himself by roaring out of the starting gate with his visionary directorial debut, 2009’s District 9. Sometimes unfortunately nothing is harder to overcome than hitting it out of the ball park your first time at bat when its time for the second go round.
Blomkamp’s highly anticipated follow-up, Elysium has a lot to riding on it, with a bigger budget and recruiting A- list stars Matt Damon and Jodie Foster to headline the cast. While his latest dystopian vision of the future is neither picture perfect nor a classic example of the dreaded sophomore slump, Elysium delivers on numerous technical and visual levels but ultimately suffers from an unbalanced helping of brawn over brain.
Welcome to the 22nd Century. Disease and over population have turned the Earth into a living nightmare. Utopia however, exists solely for the rich living on Elysium, an the orbiting country club in space. The space station is an artificial ringed habitat where nothing but maintaining an idyllic life matters. All ailments can be cured in medical chambers that come dome a doen and those left to suffer below are tossed aside with an out of sight out of mind policy.
Max De Costa (Matt Damon) lives a lowly life on Earth, making his way the best he can as a robot factory assembly line worker, albeit with a few arrests on his record. Like everyone suffering on Terra Firma, he looks to the sky and dreams of affording a life that would lead him to Elysium, often reminiscing of a promise he made to his childhood friend Frey that he would take her there one day.
On the way to work, sarcastic talk back gets him a royal whop ass from some robotic centurions, which leaves him with a broken arm, a trip to the hospital, an extension of his parole for some previous crimes and he’s in hot water with his boss. An accident on the job the next day renders him poisoned with a lethal dose of radiation, left with only five days to live and a thank you package of some government issued pills to ease the pain until he keels over.
DeCosta knows if he can hijack a trip to Elysium, it would allow the opportunity to rid his body of the radiation with a quick zap nap in a medical chamber sitting in every citizen’s house. But the orbiting fortress has a ruthless watch dog in the form of Defense Minister Delacourt (Jodie Foster) who has no problem shooting down unauthorized shuttles that attempt to land on Elysium via her rogue one man killing machine on Earth, Kruger (Sharlto Copley).
To see his plan through, DeCosta agrees to merge man and machine by having an exo-suit drilled onto his spine as well and a hard drive burrowed into his brain. He ends up inadvertently downloading secret plans that can ultimately destroy the prime functions of the film Death Star stand in. The secret data that resides in his noggin holds the key to turing the tide on the separation of classes.
Elysium has many more plot points layered into the screenplay, and keeps on target, albeit with a slow burn, in getting to its intended big finish finale. But while the first two acts are balanced with deep ideas, a good balance of sci-fi eye candy, action sequences and character development, Elysium then abruptly changes gears to go with the balls out explosion and gunfire crazed crowd pleaser finish.
The movie is not without enough goodies to please sci-fi fans with its tricked out stunning visuals, gritty futuristic gadgets and thought provoking concepts. But at just about two hours, Elysium doesn’t dig as deep into the allegory it wants to explore as seen in District 9. We get a lot of the backstage goings on of the upper class dwelling, but very little is explored in regards to the populace beyond gorgeous shots of how perfect it is to live there.
Damon plays DeCosta with his likable Matt Damon charm and determination, and is allowed to crack a few jokes to break up some scenes as he can do very effectively. You are definitely rooting for the guy as he soldiers on in impossible his quest to Elyisum.
Jodie Foster gives a puzzling and surprising one-dimensional performance as Delacourt. While several characters in the film have thick accents that are at times difficult to clearly understand, Foster’s unrecognizable dialect in the film is oft putting and seems to change through out the film. There isn’t much for her to do here except twist her villain mustache and represent all the typical bad things you expect the heavy in her situation to do. But frankly I expected there would be more under the hood from Foster.
Sharlto Copley is no stranger to teaming up with Blomkamp, he was the breakout star of District 9 (I can’t wait to see him as the villain in Spike Lee’s remake of Old Boy). Copley plays Kruger, another tech enhanced human, and the evil mad mercenary on the dirty work take from Delacourt. Copley has no problem chewing up the scenery with insane delivery of dialogue, brutal fight sequences and brandishing an assortment of advanced bad ass weaponry. There is actually more going on with Kruger than Delacourt, but flip flops in motivation throughout the film.
On the surface, Elysium boasts flawless gritty FX (just check out the realistic motion in the robotic police men), and a story that addresses the politics of a futuristic social structure gone bad. Once again Blompkamp’s penchant for hand held camera work combined with spot on CG eye candy makes for a convincing cinematic world you can sink into. But where it was running a fine pace and balance for a healthy portion its running time, the extent and excess of the big Hollywood finish ironically takes away the film’s punch.
Elysium opened in theaters and IMAX on August 9th.
REVIEW RATING: ★★½☆☆☆
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, William Fitcher, Diego Luna
Screenwriter: Neill Blomkamp
Studio: Sony Pictures
Rated: R
Running Time: 110 minutes
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