Review of Elysium (2013) by Victor T — 09 Jan 2015

Four years after surprising audiences with his critically acclaimed Academy Award nominee film "District 9", Neil Blomkamp follow look pretty promising: Bigger budget, again making some social commentary and a better casting. What could possibly go wrong?

In the year 2154, Earth is so overpopulated that all the rich and powerful people live on a utopian spaceship called Elysium, where no disease can get through, while the poor people (mostly Latinos) stay on Earth in completely chaotic lifestyle: Very few quantities of food, limited access to technology and an almost useless medical care. Max de Costa is a man living on Earth who dreams about living to Elysium but when a situation treats his life, he most go to an almost suicide mission to get to Elysium and to change the Earth citizens lifestyle.

Blomkamp had the hard task to create another film with social commentary that could be as good as "District 9" or to even outshine it, but sadly "Elysium" couldn't fulfill this extremely hard task. "Elysium" mostly follows "District 9" formula: A dystopian futuristic setup, social commentary, creative and real looking art design, a Verhoeven type of extreme violence, perfect pacing, vulgar language and over the top actiony finale. But if "Elysium" has the same elements that made "District 9" great, how is it a disappointing film? The first problem of the film is the social commentary itself, last time it was somewhat "subtle" but here they are so obvious and not as cleverly written as last time; the acting here is extremely unbalanced, while some actors like Damon or Luna provide solid performances others like Foster and Copley give bizarre and over the top performances that eventually take you out of the experience because their characters are unlike any other (especially Foster, in fact, this may be her worst performance to date); the entire premise of the film doesn't count with the creativity of its predecessor, the script has numerous inconsistencies, the characters lack depth and development, it counts with a cartoonish villain and not only repeats the major flaw that "District 9" had, the transformation from a engaging film to a mindless action film at the end, but "Elysium" takes it to a whole new level: It goes to ridiculous extremes to keep the action going, there are numerous gunfights, fistfight and even swordfights for Christ Sake, sure they may be good looking sequences but lack any tension or emotional involvement.

"Elysium" tries too hard to be as smart and unique as "District 9" but its fails, its undeniably a comedown for Blomkamp but it still is an entertaining film mindless action film with ham-fisted social commentary.