Review of Elysium (2013) by Hoops2448 — 09 Sep 2013

Lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice, something Elysium reminded me by being so remarkably similar to director Neill Blomkamp's previous feature, the excellent 2009 film District 9. The problem is that Elysium lacks any of the features and story that made District 9 so fantastic.

When released convict Max (Matt Damon) is irradiated at work he sets out on a journey to travel to Elysium, a high tech space station made to house the rich and famous while the poor and helpless live on a ruined Earth.

To get up to Elysium to find a cure Max must face the brutal defence secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her pitbull agent Kruger (Sharlto Copley). While it does show the inventive and socially dynamic mode of storytelling Blomkamp thrived at with District 9, Elysium doesn't tread as lightly as its predecessor as it plays the 1% card over and over.

Blomkamp's attempts to humanise his characters through cliched relationships and convenient bonding moments that feel fake and uninvolving backfires. The action heavy plot is clever and should be a science fiction fans dream plot but when the action actually breaks out the fighting is so frenetic thanks to an overeager editor that all the action becomes blurry and hard to watch.

Damon is good but is straddled with a crop of bad performers bringing the proceedings down. Most notably is Jodie Foster who phones it in as a manipulative bureaucrat with her eyes on, surprisingly, more power.

Foster always mounts the fence when it comes to overacting but here she leaps over it in a single bound. Copley's villain is a treat and he really is horrible making him shine with an odd sense of wonder but its not enough to fill in the films many plot holes and problems meaning Elysium was not paradise at all.