Definition of Elysium: A place or state of perfect
happiness.
Touted as the last big Sci-Fi movie of the summer, Elysium
turns out to be a good film.
I have to admit, that I was a little apprehensive seeing
this film after I learned that it was directed by Neill Blomkamp, who also
directed District 9, a film that I started watching, but had no desire to
finish after I had gotten about 45 minutes in.
I not only managed to stay with this film, but really found myself
enjoying it for the story.
Matt Damon stars as Max Da Costa, a former criminal type who
has been paroled after serving time for car theft and armed robbery. As a parolee, he is in Los Angeles just
trying to make a living as best he can working in a robot factory. The robots the helps to assemble are put into
a chamber where they are irradiated. The
door to the chamber gets jammed by a pallet. Da Costa is sent into the chamber
to clear the jam and is trapped inside as the door closes and the irradiation
cycle begins. He takes a full dose of
radiation and learns that he will die in five days.
In the meantime, people from the planet try to get to
Elysium for a chance at a better life and/or to cure diseases that cannot be
cured on earth. Three shuttles that are
dispatched by a futuristic coyote named Spider, loaded with “illegals” are
fired upon at the orders of Jessica Delacourt, the person in charge of security
on Elysium. Elysium has no weapons of its
own and so Delacourt has her hired henchman, Kruger fire missiles from earth,
destroying two of the three shuttles.
The people of the shuttle that makes it through lands and the people on
board are either killed or captured by robotic police, but one person does
manage to get her daughter treated on one of the scanning machines. President Patel (played by Faran Tahir –
Capt. Robau from Star Trek 2009) is displeased with the way that Delacourt
handled the situation and threatens to fire her and insists that she no longer
use Kruger’s services.
As a result of the sanctions imposed by the president,
Delacourt decides to stage a coup and asks the programmer of the Elysium
station to write a subroutine to re-boot the system on Elysium so she can take
over as president and preserve the idyllic conditions the way she sees fit. The programmer, John Carlyle sets to work on
his reboot program.
Back on earth, Da Costa seeks Spider’s help to get to
Elysium to be cured of his radiation poisoning.
Spider agrees, but it comes with a price. Spider tells Da Costa that he is to take get
the programs that include passwords from Carlyle by uploading them into his own
head. Da Costa Agrees.
Carlyle writes the subroutine that will reboot Elysium, and
uploads it into his own brain and leaves for Elysium. Da Costa shoots down Carlyle’s shuttle and
steals the information and learns that he has gotten more than he has bargained
for.
Knowing what has been taken from Carlyle, Delacourt
reinstates and directs Kruger to kill Da costa, but to make sure that nothing
happens to his brain, because in effect, Da Costa now carries the key to
complete control over Elysium.
Kruger searches and finds a childhood friend of Da Costa’s,
Frey, and her daughter who is dying from leukemia. Da Costa gives himself up to Kruger and all
head for Elysium. Delacourt is killed by Kruger, and decides
that he is going to be in charge of the station, but Da Costa dispatches
him. The program is uploaded to the
Elysium computers, and the reboot happens.
Da Costa dies as a result of the upload, but Frey’s daughter is cured
because Spider inputs that everyone, including those on earth are to be
considered citizens of Elysium.
I heard many say that this film is way too predictable to be
good. While I agree that the ultimate
outcome of the film is predictable (everyone knows that Da Costa is going to be
successful) it is the way in which he achieves success not for himself, but for
all of the people. I also thought that
there was enough mis-direction in the story to make sure that this wasn’t
predictable as to how Da Costa would become the hero of the film.
Matt Damon turned his usual fine performance as the
action/adventure hero. Jodie Foster
played her part as the cold-calculating power hungry executive quite well also.
The rest of the main cast fulfilled
their parts adequately. I particularly
enjoyed Tahir’s performance as the president, however short, he did come across
as being quite, well, presidential. I
would really like to see him in more roles with better developed characters as
he seems to have some good acting chops.
I was also impressed with Sharlto Copley’s performance as the tough as
nails, merciless, and cruel Kruger. He
was very convincing in his role and was the one character that I loved to hate
in the film.
The visuals in this film were well done as the space station
actually looked real whenever it was pictured.
There was never offered any explanation on how the atmosphere was
maintained on the inside surface of the wheel, but that wouldn’t have been
necessary to the story, it is just one of the questions that came to mind as I
watched this.
Elysium definitely has an undercurrent of social and
political commentary, but we are not beaten over the head with it as the story
unfolds. Blomkamp is said to have
claimed that his purpose in telling this story was to convey a message of the
future speaking to the present. While
showing how class structure in the future might determine the dispensation of
medical care was very present in the film, it doesn’t play as a political
statement, but just as a part of the story.
I also found it interesting that the Los Angeles of the future was
almost entirely made up of people of Hispanic descent, while all of those on
Elysium were causations. I am wondering
is perhaps if other parts of Blomkamp’s vision of the future don’t have
concentrations of other races in other regions; I didn’t notice any large Asian
or African-American representation in this film, with the exception of Faran
Tahir in his role as president.
Elysium most definitely earns its ‘R’ rating for the use of
hard language and a few quite bloody violent scenes. Despite this, it is a well-acted, well
directed story that unfolds logically and with very little stopping of action
to prevent the story moving forward.
Well, there it is…
QaplaH’!
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