Review of Elysium (2013) by Jhep — 12 Aug 2013

Sad to say the extremely thought-provoking premise of this film viz., the ultimate “gated community” hovering over planet Earth and housing the ultimate 1% (presumably celebrating feudalism’s Big Comeback)…. gets lost due to the combination of Neill Blomkamp’s ham-fisted, self-indulgent direction (think Chest-Pounding Self Righteousness) and the film’s surprisingly infantilized, soap opera-ish script (a cross between “The Perils of Pauline” wherein foul villains drool menacingly over helpless maidens and D.W. Griffith‘s “Way Down East”, in which a luckless Lillian Gish very nearly goes over Niagara Falls on an iceberg So “Elysium” ends up seriously TRIVIALIZING its strongest points and shooting-itself-in-the-foot…..in a sense Elysium the movie, becomes little more than an hysterical rant that the residents of Elysium, the space station, could actually welcome, chuckle over and dismiss as a badly bungled “close shave” that paradoxically actually strengthens their hold on power "Look at the loonies we have to deal with !".

Everything of interest that the movie has to offer gets said in the first 45 minutes (albeit in a garbled and heavy-handed way) and from that point on the audience finds itself locked inside a shrill and very LOUD/noisy video game. Soon those nagging words “DUMBING DOWN” seem to float ominously over every scene and the film speedily wears out it‘s welcome……...I’m a great admirer of Matt Damon’s work (Promised Land, Green Zone, Good Will Hunting, the “Bourne” films) and I was very impressed with Neill Blomkamp’s “District 9” so the bitterness of my comments here is due in large part by the fact that I was really looking forward to this film….only to discover that its director has either “bitten off much more that he can chew” or else has allowed his feelings to run away with him (and needs to re-visit “Yentl” and mull over its quotation from the Talmud “Who is strong “He who controls his passions!”.) Whatever the reason “Elysium” ends up being more of a temper tantrum than a work of art and although director Neill Blomkamp’s heart may be in the right place ……he has bungled this film badly.