New Release Review: 'Elysium'

Want to explore a real world issue by examining it in a new light? Then sci-fi may be the genre for you! In theory.

After Neill Blomkamp's spin on the racial divide in South Africa in District 9 we now get his take on the gap between LA's servant class and the wealthy to whom they tend. The set-up: the very rich have fled Earth to live on a space habitat (or 'ringworld' to those that know their sci-fi) which orbits our world, whilst the other many-many-billions-of-us gaze up at the sky and hope that one day we can buy a ticket there and get shot of the over populated, over polluted Earth. Matt Damon plays one such habitat gazer. After an accident leaves him with a significantly shortened life span he races to find a way onto the rather well defended habitat where the med-pods the wealthy use to keep themselves healthy will save him.

Despite going out of his way to introduce storylines about immigration, healthcare and the rich/poor divide, Blomkamp then studiously ignores them for the rest of the film's running time. Those knotty issues are just backdrop. Even Damon's storyline takes a backseat to Blomkamp's real interests: ponderously large futuristic weaponry and over choreographed action sequences. There's one beautiful shot in which he details the annihilation of a robot in slow motion - a shot we get twice, just so we can fully appreciate it - and it looks amazing, but it means nothing; perhaps the best summation of the film. If we could invest in someone then things might have been different, but characters are introduced hazily, and die arbitrarily. There's a voice-over that comes in several times, a memory from Damon's past, reminding him that he's destined for great things; which is twaddle. Nothing that happens in the film is destiny, it's just happenstance. The film isn't exploring fate versus choice, it's just throwing in a portentous flashback to give weight to a story that has none.

Elysium only comes alive when Sharlto Copley (who played the bumbling jobsworth on District 9) is onscreen. His mercenary is indifferently written but Copley has enough charisma to make him memorable. No one else gets out with their credibility intact - except perhaps Damon, but that has more to do with how forgettable his role is than anything else. Jodie Foster does a watered down (and strangely accented) version of her part in Inside Man, William Fichtner glowers a lot (and that's about it), and Wagner Moura seems to have been told to do his best Nic Cage impression: all nervous energy and awkwardly tilted head.

One thing Blomkamp has done a great job of is making the Earth look worn and weathered. The security robots and air transport are immaculately designed and rendered. It all looks credible, it just doesn't sound credible. The world doesn't quite make sense. That wouldn't be as critical to the film if it had a beating heart, instead it has a electro-pulse-cannon-thing in its place.

The overall effect is of having watched a friend play a video game for an hour and a half, not once pausing to ask if you'd like a go. An unforgivable act.

Overall: 3/10

MINOR SPOILERS:
(Highlight to read)
The mission that drives a large proportion of the plot is an attempt to turn the citizens of Earth into citizens of Elysium, via the never-very-cinematic art of hacking a computer, which would give everyone access to the med-pods they so desperately need. In an ideal world I'd have been rooting for Damon and the handful of others that join him on this mission. Instead I was worrying about the practicalities of the plan: It's not possible for everyone to go to Elysium; it's got a population of 10,000. Everyone can't just head up there, it wouldn't be sustainable! Mostly they're just after the med-pods, but how many uses can they get out of them? How many are there? They're obviously a finite resource. I don't imagine they'll work particularly well by the time person number ten billion gets their turn.

More importantly, the master plan has nothing to do with fixing Earth. What they're doing is little more than putting a band aid on a heat shot wound. Nothing's going to change, it's just a temporary fix.