District 9 is to apartheid, what Elysium is to asylum seeking. And as
much as Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd might wish, there's little chance they'll be
able to build an Aussie Elysium after the upcoming election.
It's 2154
and Earth has turned into one massive slum. Parading as a futuristic Los
Angeles – the earth bound scenes were actually filmed in Mexico – Earth has
turned into an overpopulated, disease ridden and tattoo laden cesspool. So in
an attempt to further distance itself from the real world, Beverly Hills has
flown off – almost literally! The well-to-do of this world have headed north of
the border planet to Elysium – a synthetically made futuristic suburban
space station, which uncannily resembles Stanley Kubrick's in 2001: A Space Odyssey. With pool parties
that are the conservative equivalent of Gatsby's, and each Elysium mansion
coming equipped with a machine which can heal any illness, Elysium is
pleasantville on aristocratic crack.
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| If one is to blow up innocent people, one must do it in sty...lish garbs. |
Holding
power in Elysium are the one-dimensional (and conventionally boring) baddies.
These evil doers, led by a snarly - and robot accented - Defence Secretary,
Madame Delacourt (Jodie Foster), seek to keep Elysium exclusive safe.
Therefore, the Defence Secretary's job consists of keeping diseased earthlings
out of Elysium by any means necessary. In order to do this Delacourt feels she
must adopt a less than humane approach to stopping earthlings from entering
Elysium. No, it's not by turning ships from Earth back, it's by ordering a
heavily accented - and horribly clichéd - henchman, played by Blomkamp's
District 9 star, Sharlto Copley, to blow up illegal space ships. (After
witnessing a shattering scene where Elysium bound ships are destroyed, I
wondered what Aussie politicians would think... Would they take notes? Or quietly give a fist pump? Would Coalition
members scribble down their next 3-word catch phrase?)
In the
midst of this grim fatalistic outlook is the blue collar underdog of the film,
Max (Matt Damon). Raised in an orphanage by Spanish nuns, Max is now grown up,
bald and trying to turn his life around. The only problem is that we've seen this
act before – many times before. And even the versatile Matt Damon couldn't save
this bloke from being chucked into the ‘been there, done that’ file. Mind you,
Jodie Foster's tight lipped Madame is just as boring and flat lining as Max.
Even when our hero embarks on his mission to get to a med bay in Elysium - Max
is pumped full of radiation at work and must get to a bay to save his life -
the plot never really pulls any punches like Blomkamp's last sci-fi adventure, District 9.
Expectations
were high that Damon and Blomkamp would reverse the recent trend of big budget
action films that care only about profits. Elysium
was supposed to mean something. And while some will argue that it does, it doesn’t
ever venture out of the overly-simplistic-left-wing-
Is it
daring to take on illegal immigration and socialised medicine? Sure. But to
oversimplify it all doesn't really do it justice. I was reminded of Andrew
Niccol's weak attempt to expose the injustice and abhorrent greed of the world
in In Time. And when Elysium descended into one big shoot 'em
up disaster, I felt like the director had thrown in the towel and reverted back
to the traditional good-guy-battles-bad-guy tropes we are used to seeing in
blockbuster action movies.
It's
not that the plot or the acting was bad – it just failed to land any thoughtful
punches. For a film which wants to be anything but safe, the final product
wreaked of it.
 |
| It had to happen... |
The action scenes are fast paced - look out for a shaky camera or two! - and come on in torrents in the second half of the film. Although, I was shocked to see Elysium remain in the sky since it has become the in thing to destroy entire cities, countries and planets. But don't you fret action diehards, there's a particular face-getting-blown-off scene which will get you bouncing in your seat. However, when Max faces off against Kruger and his gang, all thoughtfulness behind the film is shoved into a blender and chopped up. It gets to the point where I wonder why the plight of the human race is really focused on in such depth in the first half of the film.
 |
| Guess who? |
What's worth seeing is Matt Damon go from playing Liberace's effeminate, tender and eye liner wearing young partner in Benind the Candlelabra, to this down to earth, working class bloke in Elysium. It's on the same impressive level as Hugh Jackman, who took off from the Broadway stage in the '90s to play the hulking mass of bad-boy muscle, known to the world as Wolverine.
6/10
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