In an age when the planet is facing escalating problems due to overpopulation, pollution, and growing inequality, a film like Elysium feels frighteningly applicable in its dystopian future vision. Director Niell Blomkamp, the talented mind behind District 9, films with a gritty intensity that makes this film come into its own, despite some lacking in originality or even in logic. Elysium’s overt reference to class struggle dominates the story, but strong acting and some wonderful effects are what make it a great film.
The film is set in 2154, and humans have overpopulated the planet to the extent that Los Angeles resembles a massive disease-ridden and polluted slum. Robot droids police the garbage-strewn streets, hospitals are overrun, and the poor clearly have little chance of ever escaping this cycle of deprivation. The wealthiest handful of people fled the planet to a space station named Elysium, a utopian habitat full of lush greenery and spacious homes, and without crime, disease, or poverty. Our hero for the adventure through this fractured world is Max (Matt Damon), a retired car thief turned factory worker. Max has grown up in L.A. suburbs, looking up at Elysium each day with the curiosity and anger of why he will never be a citizen up there. At the same time, Max has been ambitious and confident since adolescence, promising his childhood friend Frey (Alice Braga) that he will one day get them up to Elysium.
As a reformed criminal, Max lives in tired repetitiveness, doing what he thinks is right to make himself a better life. Then one day after an accident at the production line he works on, Max is told he has but a few days to live. With the knowledge that those on Elysium would have the technology to heal Max laying in their living rooms, he desperately begs a tech-savvy black-market friend of his named Spider (Wagner Moura) to get him up to Elysium. In his desperation Max agrees to dawn an exoskeleton that can retain the cerebral memory of others, giving him a unique power against Elysium, which is protected by the fierce Defense Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) – a woman not afraid to shoot down civilian ships to prevent them from entering Elysium’s artificial atmosphere. Down on Earth, the defense department of Elysium also has sleeper agents waiting for their call to strike. One such character is the sociopathic Kruger (Sharlto Copley), a vile and vicious henchman with more than a few tricks up his sleeves.
As the tension in Elysium rises and the plot begins to unravel itself, the stakes get higher and the potential payoffs to the heroes becomes greater. Blomkamp does, for the most part, a superb job here visually, my only qualm being that he sometimes jumps between inspired shots and hand-held flashes, most often in the fight sequences. Other than that, the visuals are quite spectacular and Blomkamp’s true talent is mostly realized. Copley is ferocious as Kruger, Foster displays an icy exterior as Delacourt, and Damon gets the job done as the protagonist.
For a film with such a perfect sci-fi plot for today’s audiences, the metaphor of class struggle is largely ignored to the extent that the conclusion of the film makes little sense. There are also a number of questions that can be made of the story line that don’t improve the film’s credibility. However, in spite of these flaws Elysium was still a very involving and entertaining futuristic thriller. While not quite delivering on its noble metaphor, this film still impresses with visual engagement and great action.
The film is set in 2154, and humans have overpopulated the planet to the extent that Los Angeles resembles a massive disease-ridden and polluted slum. Robot droids police the garbage-strewn streets, hospitals are overrun, and the poor clearly have little chance of ever escaping this cycle of deprivation. The wealthiest handful of people fled the planet to a space station named Elysium, a utopian habitat full of lush greenery and spacious homes, and without crime, disease, or poverty. Our hero for the adventure through this fractured world is Max (Matt Damon), a retired car thief turned factory worker. Max has grown up in L.A. suburbs, looking up at Elysium each day with the curiosity and anger of why he will never be a citizen up there. At the same time, Max has been ambitious and confident since adolescence, promising his childhood friend Frey (Alice Braga) that he will one day get them up to Elysium.
As a reformed criminal, Max lives in tired repetitiveness, doing what he thinks is right to make himself a better life. Then one day after an accident at the production line he works on, Max is told he has but a few days to live. With the knowledge that those on Elysium would have the technology to heal Max laying in their living rooms, he desperately begs a tech-savvy black-market friend of his named Spider (Wagner Moura) to get him up to Elysium. In his desperation Max agrees to dawn an exoskeleton that can retain the cerebral memory of others, giving him a unique power against Elysium, which is protected by the fierce Defense Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) – a woman not afraid to shoot down civilian ships to prevent them from entering Elysium’s artificial atmosphere. Down on Earth, the defense department of Elysium also has sleeper agents waiting for their call to strike. One such character is the sociopathic Kruger (Sharlto Copley), a vile and vicious henchman with more than a few tricks up his sleeves.
As the tension in Elysium rises and the plot begins to unravel itself, the stakes get higher and the potential payoffs to the heroes becomes greater. Blomkamp does, for the most part, a superb job here visually, my only qualm being that he sometimes jumps between inspired shots and hand-held flashes, most often in the fight sequences. Other than that, the visuals are quite spectacular and Blomkamp’s true talent is mostly realized. Copley is ferocious as Kruger, Foster displays an icy exterior as Delacourt, and Damon gets the job done as the protagonist.
For a film with such a perfect sci-fi plot for today’s audiences, the metaphor of class struggle is largely ignored to the extent that the conclusion of the film makes little sense. There are also a number of questions that can be made of the story line that don’t improve the film’s credibility. However, in spite of these flaws Elysium was still a very involving and entertaining futuristic thriller. While not quite delivering on its noble metaphor, this film still impresses with visual engagement and great action.
As the tension in Elysium rises and the plot begins to unravel itself, the stakes get higher and the potential payoffs to the heroes becomes greater. Blomkamp does, for the most part, a superb job here visually, my only qualm being that he sometimes jumps between inspired shots and hand-held flashes, most often in the fight sequences. Other than that, the visuals are quite spectacular and Blomkamp’s true talent is mostly realized. Copley is ferocious as Kruger, Foster displays an icy exterior as Delacourt, and Damon gets the job done as the protagonist.
For a film with such a perfect sci-fi plot for today’s audiences, the metaphor of class struggle is largely ignored to the extent that the conclusion of the film makes little sense. There are also a number of questions that can be made of the story line that don’t improve the film’s credibility. However, in spite of these flaws Elysium was still a very involving and entertaining futuristic thriller. While not quite delivering on its noble metaphor, this film still impresses with visual engagement and great action.
For a film with such a perfect sci-fi plot for today’s audiences, the metaphor of class struggle is largely ignored to the extent that the conclusion of the film makes little sense. There are also a number of questions that can be made of the story line that don’t improve the film’s credibility. However, in spite of these flaws Elysium was still a very involving and entertaining futuristic thriller. While not quite delivering on its noble metaphor, this film still impresses with visual engagement and great action.