It’s the year 2154 and human beings have reached the pinnacle of
technological advancement. They have perfected cybernetics, created machines
capable of curing all diseases and reanimating limbs in addition to creating an
outer space colony housing the elite of this earth who enjoy every luxury
imaginable. The poor on the other hand are left on earth to fend for themselves
and are desperate to reach Elysium not to seek residence, but to be able to get
a chance to cure whatever life-threatening disease that ails them.
Max DeCosta (Matt Damon) is our hero who is exposed
to a dangerous amount of radiation in a freak accident, and has 5 days to live.
Max decides to abandon the life of an exploited labourer and go back to his old
criminal friends to get a chance to go to Elysium to heal himself. His journey
won’t be easy as the ruthless head of Elysium security, Secretary Delacourt
(Jodie Foster) will do everything in her power to stop any sort of illegal
entry to Elysium.
Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to District 9 is just as
if not more visually breathtaking than his first feature film. This movie looks
beautiful. The eerie futuristic slums create a sense of despair and
hopelessness. The visual effects from fight scenes, robotic police to beautiful
outer colony of Elysium itself are stunning and a testament to Blomkamp’s
extraordinary skill as a visual filmmaker. However the folly lies with the
script and the acting in the movie.
Elysium has a great message with subpar execution.
Neill Blomkamp attempts to tackle every current US/Global social/geopolitical
issue out there with subtlety of a bull in a china shop. The growing rift
between the rich and the poor, over population, illegal immigration, and
universal health care, pollution and so on. All noble issues but the movie fails
to provide any real solutions. It ends abruptly and sort of anticlimactically providing
simplistic black and white answer to increasingly complex geopolitical
problems. It’s a sci-fi fairy-tale where everyone lives happily ever after, and
no one asks “Hey, but what about all the problems created after?”
The message almost seems preachy at points with
“Homeland Security” cracking down on “illegal immigrants” through the use of
ruthless hired police patrolling the proverbial space borders screaming America’s
reluctance on reforming immigration laws. With District 9 everyone knew the
movie was about apartheid, it didn’t have to insult the intelligence of the
audience by reminding them at every chance it can get that “This is a metaphor
about apartheid!”
A movie should have a message, but there has to be
some challenge, some thoughts provoked after watching it. An audience should be able to come to their
own conclusion (even if they’re the wrong ones). There should be some
discussion after watching the movie. Elysium doesn’t take the same risks District
9 did, and it tells you this is how it is and there are no two ways about it.
Most of the performances in Elysium were lackluster
at best with Jody Foster’s performance being the weakest; it felt like she
couldn’t decide what accent she wanted to do. Matt Damon was okay as a robotic
Jason Bourne, but it was Sharlto Copley who’s a true star of this movie. Every
scene he was in was ten times more exciting than anything else in the movie. He
really showed his versatility as an actor by embodying a psychopathic rogue
soldier. Unfortunately the rest of the cast doesn’t match the energy that
Sharlto brings to the table.
In the end Elysium is enjoyable, but not the epic
dystopian movie I was hoping for. It has intense action scenes, feels like the
Halo movie that could've been, good message, beautiful visuals but it falls
short because of its simplistic delivery and poor acting.
Elysium gets 6 Halo rings out of 10.
A good Halo movie:
Elysium is the Halo movie we were all waiting for.
Body enhancing armour, multitude of assault weapons, energy shields,
overzealous soldier and a giant ring in the sky with an atmosphere. The only
thing this movie was missing was Master Chief and Cortana.
The movie is structured like a videogame; you start from nothing and slowly build up your experience fighting low level grunts. Get enhancing exoskeleton fight a boss way out of your league, lose, heal with very little repercussions, and move up the levels ultimately facing the same boss that humiliated you in earlier levels, but this time he has newer toys and upgraded armor as well.
Elysium is the best videogame movie that was never made.
The movie is structured like a videogame; you start from nothing and slowly build up your experience fighting low level grunts. Get enhancing exoskeleton fight a boss way out of your league, lose, heal with very little repercussions, and move up the levels ultimately facing the same boss that humiliated you in earlier levels, but this time he has newer toys and upgraded armor as well.
Elysium is the best videogame movie that was never made.
