Here is the film review for Elysium with Matt Damon that came out this past weekend. Definitely worth seeing. Read below to find out. Elysium 3 ½ / 4 Here’s a sci-fi film that sends a message on Immigration, Obamacare and our current country’s lack of a middle class. Neil Blomkamp’s follow up to his stunning District 9 from four years ago is nearly as good or better than that breakthrough for him. Elysium is at its most powerful when it is trying to tell us what is going on with our world through the platforms of science fiction. Nearly all of science fiction is used as a springboard to explore our desires or fantasies. Elysium is unique in trying to tell us what we need to change. It also manages to feel like a super hero movie without the obvious workings or trying to be for that matter despite its over injection of invincibility at times. Blomkamp again uses superior special effects of crisp and realistic sounding and looking CGI sequences. It is 2154 in the future and the poor poverty stricken people live on Earth while the wealthy live on a circular structure in space called Elysium. We are taken to Max (Matt Damon) a former criminal of heist skill who now works in a factory and is on egg shells of his parole terms. We also have the girl Max grew up and fell in love with at first sight in Frey (Alice Braga) who now has a terminally ill daughter. When Max is accidentally hit with radiation from forcible authority, he seeks a cure and is instead equipped with an armor suit that enables him to be incredibly strong. He is given this suit and makes a deal to retract valuable information that could lead to equality for all and a cure for not just him but maybe the daughter of Frey as well. Visually, Elysium is stunning. The aerial views of space and of the land inside the orbited paradise are beautiful and feel totally real. Blomkamp provided the same look and feel for the alien ships in District 9 and his taste for using a certain style of CGI pays off again here. I was continuously mesmerized by the artificial look of Elysium from its over the top swoop from the camera to its planted on the ground exploration. Neill feels inspired by that Van Damme movie Cyborg from the early 90’s in the look of the human/armor characters and their combat sequences. That film like this one revolved around a futuristic setting of dystopian landscapes. I can even see some elements of Universal Soldier put in this movie. I only wish that the atomized regeneration didn’t occur so extremely or illogically. Somehow a few key characters are designated to be deceased by a stab or bullet wound and yet a man’s face is blown off and is restored where he’s brought back to life. You can obviously see how the extremity of an orbital paradise being contrasted with a poverty earth is a mirror of our current economy and having either the rich or the poor with no middle. You can also see that the use of technology that can cure only the rich is a commentary that either the rich have enough money to get the best treatment or that Obamacare will leave the lesser wealthy in desperation. I suppose if you look at Michael Douglas getting stage 4 throat cancer to go into remission, he must have gotten a dose of chemo unaffordable to someone less wealthy. Blomkamp gives us an awakening on the immigration system as well. But he finds a way to unify the issue among more than just those south of the border. Why are the poor not privileged to live a better life at their own control or have access to becoming a citizen of Elysium? I loved also that the frustration of automated phone and technological systems is put on display as Damon has to conversate with a robot who offers only prompts and mechanical responses. While the filmmakers set out on making a sci-fi actioner with food for thought, sometimes the movie gets sucked into grand stands, face-offs and machismo amidst a global obstacle. Seeing Damon’s Max engage in combat with Elysium’s henchman and their most lethal weapon in the psychotic Kreuger (Sharlto Copley) is in one angle cool in the sense of supeheroes taking on supervillains and yet I found the masculine insolence to be selfish in the face of doing things smarter to either save or prevent. But otherwise, the physical battles are entertaining. I heard that Blomkamp wanted Eminem for the role of Max. I must say that Mathers might be too small despite his look and anger fitting the character. Matt Damon has affirmed himself as not just a humanitarian actor but an action hero of smart films. His performance captures all of the desperation, survival and heart needed for us to endure his character’s criminal look and yet selfish decision at one point in the movie. Jodie Foster dons a British sort of accent and it is needed for her role of a woman who is head of security under a male president. Foster couldn’t use her southern dialect or sound of Americana for a woman as snobbish and injust to the separation of class among the human race. Sharlto Copley is hammy and sometimes over the top in his villainy as Kreuger. But he shows just how nasty he can be next to his victimized anti-hero of District 9 or his reserved and loonish heroic part in the A-Team. Diego Luna is touching as the best friend to Max who shows his virtuosity and loyalty despite his wrongful place in the world. From a standpoint on commentary, message and visuals, Elysium is a must see. It stretches the invincibility of itself inconsistently at times. It also indulges at times in singular machismo when it should be intellectually resourceful in being heroic. However, in the closing of a summer full of blockbuster let down, this is a film that doesn’t fail in its crucial parts.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 16:44:55 +0000
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