Movies: Elysium

Score:  ***1/2 out of ***** (B)

Long Story Short:  Neill Blomkamp's follow-up to his hit debut, District 9, finally arrives, this one another sci-fi action film.  The modern-issue parallel changes (from immigration to inequality), and the action and stars (Damon, Foster) are ramped up, while the clever, gritty-realistic world design remains.  Unfortunately, the plot lets it all down, a predictable sequence of events and even a few painfully cliched aspects.  Blomkamp certainly has the details down; now he just needs to start seeing the forest for the trees.


With the summer and its busy film season winding down (sigh, for both), there are still a few blockbuster-type movies coming out.  In the sports world, we're also approaching the tennis U.S. Open and the start of the football season, for which I hope to make one or two blog posts.  First, let's get to the latest movie I've seen, Elysium.  Even as a fan of sci-fi, the premise of this one didn't really get me all that intrigued.  However, the filmmaker behind it, Neill Blomkamp, did.  Having made the original (if slightly overrated) sci-fi hit District 9, I really wanted to see how this new guy was progressing.  The reviews weren't spectacular, but I knew that whatever Elysium turned out to be, it wasn't going to be a generic Hollywood blockbuster.  Aside from the aforementioned director, Elysium stars Matt Damon and Jodie Foster.

Elysium takes place on and around earth in 2154; views of the landscape in the beginning show the planet to be completely saturated with human life, and in bad shape.  In particular focus is Los Angeles, the entirety of which has become as bad or worse than today's city slums.  As one of the city's millions of citizens trying to get by however possible, Max (Damon) works for a global hi-tech company.  It's also implied that Max used to be a felon, but time in jail - and brutal supervision by robot authorities - has beaten that out of him.  While life on earth stinks, in the atmosphere hovers a massive space station - Elysium - that harbors a wealthy few who live in an artificial utopia.

An accident at work one day results in imminent catastrophe for Max.  Having long ago given up on Elysium as an unreachable fantasy, Max is suddenly desperate to reach it and its miraculous medical technology.  As he does everything he can to get there, Max finds that the seemingly tidy split between dirty, poor earth and rich, disciplined Elysium is not what it seems, and his fate becomes intermingled with the competing interests of parties on both worlds.

The cast of Elysium is decent, but uneven.  Matt Damon stars as the beleaguered Max, and unfortunately, this is the biggest casting problem.  Damon is certainly a good actor, and he does a good job of showing how his character has been demoralized, made cynical, yet is still somewhat sympathetic.  But the film goes out of its way to tell you that Max used to be a daredevil felon, and that doesn't come through at all; I think Damon is just too tame for it.  An actor with more edge and attitude would have been appropriate, I think, and in fact having a lesser known figure would also have been appropriate.  Given second billing (although after Damon, there are no other major parts) is Jodie Foster as Elysium security director Delacourt.  She's not a bold choice for the role but fits it well nevertheless as the intelligent, brutal and ambitious villainess.

Playing Delacourt's henchman is Sharlto Copley - who starred in District 9 and is the director's good friend - as agent Kruger.  I was really impressed by Copley in District 9, but unfortunately there are only glimpses of his creativity in Elysium.  Supposedly the world's most dangerous man, Copley does what he can to intimidate but the script lets him down.  There's also Alice Braga as Frey, the cliched romantic interest for Max.  I won't comment on Braga's acting because she doesn't really have much chance to do any; suffice it to say it's by far the weakest part of the film and needed to be overhauled or dumped altogether.  The one guy I can say I was really pleased with was Wagner Moura as a crime leader.  Never seen him in anything else, but Moura acts with great passion, truly inhabiting his role and stealing every scene that he's in.  I doubt he'll get any awards recognition, but he deserves it.

After District 9, I was expecting a sci-fi action film with interesting parallels to modern societal issues, and interesting futuristic design.  This is basically what we get; it significantly improves on District 9 in action, stays about even on design, but regresses in terms of issues and plot.  Let's start with the positive:  Blomkamp made huge strides with his action scenes here.  While not perfect by any means (some of the less flashy stuff could be cleaned up), they are easily distinguishable from the average blockbuster and offer up several "wow" moments.  Particularly noteworthy are Max's hi-tech "upgrades", plus the way robot combatants are used.  Also, the griminess of earth is excellent and realistic, even if the Elysium space station is pretty typical sci-fi fare.  Now the downsides:  plot and issues (which further hurt one another).  The plot is just very straightforward, by-the-book stuff; I'm terrible at predicting things during a movie, but it's difficult not to see where things are going here.  And while, as a liberal, I commend the use of the pressing issue of economic inequality, it's not very subtle (the ending is just too much) and it's used more as window dressing than anything.

***

With a "B" score, Elysium symbolizes much of the year in film so far:  not bad, but you can do better, Hollywood.  I'm disappointed here in particular, of course, with director Blomkamp.  I think it comes down to getting a little ahead of himself, and perhaps the film slipped out of his control.  Not that District 9 was perfect by any means:  its plot came apart a little toward the end, and the immigration ideas, which had enormous promise at the beginning, quietly fizzled out.  The aims of Elysium are on a bigger scale, and so things got simplified.  The Frey character is startlingly lazy:  she is used to provide more emotional impact, but it utterly fails because the part simply does not fit in the film and can't help but be poorly written.  Dump that whole part, replace Damon with an up-and-comer with pizzazz, and Blomkamp really could have done something here.  It's mostly out of disappointment that I'm highlighting the bad here:  there's plenty that's good.  Taken as a normal action film (which it shouldn't be, but...), it's higher quality than most.  It has a good pace, and finishes under two hours.  The world design is a treat, and the cast is serviceable with a few highlights.  I was about to finish this by saying "if you want an original action film, give this a try".  But it's the ingredients (ie: world design) that are original, and they can't steer the plot to new territory.  If you're in the mood for this genre, you could do worse.