Film Review: "Elysium"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 07 August 2013 21:50

Written by Matt Oakes

"Elyisum"
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, William Fichtner and Emma Tremblay
Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
109 Mins
R

At times prone to bluntness, Elysium packs wads of conventional sci-fi action amidst a ravaged view of the future. Nailed together with biting political satire, it's a savage message board that hammers home director Neill Blomkamp's cynical ethos. Offering a glum look at an Earth spoiled by overpopulation and rampant authoritarianism, Blomkamp has perfected his signature sardonic voice and here uses his ruminations on wealth inequality as entertaining, and meaningful, ammunition.

Expanding on the political edge he utilized in District 9, here Blomkamp shifts from apartheid to global health, convicting the duplicitous members of the elite for their crimes against humanity as a whole. As much a pot-shot at the one percent as a sci-fi actioner, this caliber of blockbuster is of the rare intellectual breed, emboldened by Blomkamp's knack for world building. Overflowing with sly wit and stylish cinematography, Elysium is a meaningful addition to a genre that is as much about prognosticating events to come as it is about action.

Hugging Earth's atmosphere, Elysium is an asylum for the über-rich, an omnipresent symbol of wealth inequality - a mere 12-minute shuttle ride away. Beneath the veneer of a presidency, the wheel-shaped space station is run by merciless and ambitious defense autocrat, Delacourt (Jodie Foster) - an ends-justify-the-means type with a power-hungry streak. Elysium is the equivalent of a country club in space. A verdant spread of manicured grass and sparkling lakes, teeming with ivory-pillared mansions and palm trees, its appeal is in its exclusivity. Also, machines that can heal any and every affliction, from busted bones to blown-up, hollowed-out faces. While it can't quite bring anyone back to life, it can do pretty much anything else.

But the citizens of Elysium keep these coveted machines and their sculptured paradise lifestyle to themselves. Making disparaging commentary about the pauper life of the Earthling, they live a sheltered fantasy that acts as the envy of every child back on Earth's surface. When Earth folk hop aboard pirated shuttles and head towards the alluring omnipresent utopia lingering always on Earth's horizon, their unblinking execution is seen as acceptable measures to ensure that Eden goes unspoiled.

Back on Earth, we meet Max (Matt Damon) as a child, shot in amber-toned retrospect. An orphan raised by Spanish nuns, Max dreams of someday going to Elysium. When he meets fellow orphan Frey (Alice Braga), Max makes a promise that he will someday buy a pair of tickets to the hovering space Arcadia. But Max's turn to a life of crime split the two apart, only to reunite years later right before Max is dosed with a terminal amount of radiation. His only option for survival: the machines harbored on Elysium.

While many of the story beats to follow have been seen before (the platonically-grounded romance, the hunt for the last-man-standing, kidnapped loved ones used as collateral, and a series of escalating showdowns), they shine because the world around them is so fleshed out.

For example, Sharlto Copley's primal gun-for-hire, Kruger, may be little more than a broadly colored action trope but his character is an allusion to the corruptible power of wealth and the lows that those in power will stoop to ensure they stay in power. In backroom arbitrations, Delacourt employs Kruger's shady tactics, the exact brand of at-all-costs methodologies that Blomkamp belittles. The lengths to which these characters will go to either ensure their position or work their way up the ladder is troubling, yet credible, in a world where greed is rewarded and power, a thing to be seized.

While the characters themselves are somewhat admittedly thinly written, they serve their purpose as foundations upon which the house of cards is built. As pieces building towards a darkly satirical judgment on disproportional fiscal distribution, they stack up nicely. Working with archetypes to spell out a crystal clear proletariat message, Blomkamp is a fighter - an auteur staging the last remaining vestige of a fractured and defeated Occupy campaign.

Because of his refusal to go quietly, Elysium becomes an exciting and powerful metaphor that packs as much message as it does punch. Though some may take shots at Blomkamp for over-ripening the overtly present politicking seeping from Elysium, his satirical tongue gives the film a startling sense of real-world application that few recent blockbusters dare to engage in. Blomkamp's heavy-handed musings may be too forceful for the enchanted drones but it is gospel for the disenfranchised brigades of the modern workforce.

By bringing his distrustful and partially misanthropic eye back into focus, Elysium proves that District 9 was no chance occurrence. Like his characters, Blomkamp is a daring hostile who's willing to burn the gates of the industry while manipulating its hyper-violence to his advantage. In sum, he's solidified his place as a maverick filmmaker. While some might think that having the wealthiest citizens hoard life-saving machines is a plot MacGuffin of sorts, we have only to turn to current global wealth inequalities to realize that this is already manifesting itself in our own current state of affairs.

As mentioned earlier, one of the most important elements of the sci-fi genre is its willingness to predict what is to come. To this point, it's interesting to examine how our perception of the future has changed. Putting our shifting cosmology under the microscope, the future has transformed drastically from the 1980s to the modern day. Compare the shiny tech-explosion seen in Back to the Future with its instant-food microwaves and hover-boards to more recent fare.

With films like Elysium, Looper, and Dredd, the future is a grimy place - bleak, crowded and hostile. As a reflection of our global fears, its seems that our minds have collectively turned towards issues of overpopulation, inequality and authoritarianism. The future is no longer a promised land; it's a hellhole.

With globalization constantly accelerating yearly, the Earth is transforming. Accordingly, it's no surprise that Spanish is the common denominator language in the film, nor is it a surprise that police work has been transferred over to affection-less AIs. It's a world veering from empathy into a pit of enforced entropy - literally, hell on earth.

But to discuss Elysium without mentioning the gorgeous cinematography by Trent Opaloch would be to skirt a major attraction of the film. Hovering shots of Earth glimpsed from the space station aim to incite regret, to fuel second-guessing and deserve to be seen in the theater. The set design is equally enviable with Blomkamp's hawk-eyed attention to detail and overwhelming use of practical effects and set pieces that make this world feel like a lived in, and much reviled, place.

With metaphors as explosive as the beautifully realized action, Elysium is a breathless experience with outbreaks of genius. Prone to coercive measures, Blomkamp pokes the rubble of the future and churns the ash towards our face. Subtlety is not his game, nor should it be. He knows he is onto something here and dares to execute it candidly without the common glaze of apathy. There may be moments of stumbling, particularly in the character development department but it's nothing than can't be fixed by an exoskeleton mech-suit. Problems notwithstanding, Blomkamp has again made a rare film that is as purely awesome as it is meaningful.

B+

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