Elysium: Movie Review

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.