ELYSIUM written and directed by Neill Blomkamp, with Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga and Sharlto Copley. A Sony Pictures release. 109 minutes. Some subtitles. Opens Friday (August 9). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NN
Elysium is virtually identical, plot-wise, to Neill Blomkamp’s wildly overrated 2009 debut, District 9. Both movies are about ordinary men on the run from their authoritarian societies after an accidental exposure to something unnatural who ultimately wind up in a position to bring down said authoritarian society – or at least liberate the citizens made most miserable by its tyranny.
Once again we’re in a world divided by status. It’s 2154, and the wealthy have long since evacuated to the eponymous orbital paradise, while everyone else is left to suffer on an overheated, filthy Earth.
Matt Damon’s Max is a factory worker (and former car thief) from the favelas of Los Angeles who’s given just days to live after absorbing a lethal dose of radiation in a workplace accident. The tech on Elysium can cure him in seconds, but access is restricted. To get a set of forged papers, Max agrees to kidnap his former boss (William Fichtner) and steal the invaluable information stored in the man’s brain.
But on this particular day, that brain contains a program that could rewrite the rules of Elysium – and the station’s autocratic secretary of defence (Jodie Foster) will stop at nothing to get it back, dispatching a maniacal contractor (District 9’s Sharlto Copley, who is frankly awful) to capture Max by any means necessary.
Fortunately, Max is wearing a super-powered exoskeleton to give his failing body super-strength. And also, he has guns that blow shit up in really cool ways, because that’s all Blomkamp really cares about. As in District 9, all the sociopolitical stuff is just the excuse to reduce humans to goo and smash large things into other things.
District 9 was embraced for its combination of spectacular carnage and garbled political posturing – remember that best picture nomination? – so its fans will doubtless find Elysium even more meaningful and relevant. I would politely remind you that The Phantom Menace still has its defenders, too.
The picture validates all of my reservations about District 9. Blomkamp’s only got one movie in him, and that movie is Halo. Someone please let him make it, just so we can put all this behind us.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @wilnervision
