Neill Blomkamp delivered the somewhat intriguing but ultimately disappointing “District 9” and now he’s back with “Elysium”. The two films feel very similar with equally bleak sci-fi futures on display and while I think “Elysium” is slightly better, it isn’t very captivating.
In 2154, Earth is overpopulated and polluted while the richest people live on a planet-like spaceship paradise by the name of ‘Elysium’. Max (Matt Damon “Saving Private Ryan”, “The Bourne Ultimatum”) is a factory worker, who is exposed to radiation and realises his only chance for survival is to somehow get to Elysium so he can be cured; that’s going to be easy said than done.
Matt Damon is okay as Max but he doesn’t have a lot to work with. The character basically turns into one-man army when he’s given an exosuit. The movie then becomes reminiscent of “Johnny Mnemonic” as Max gets a ton of code relating to Elysium stored in his head and that’s when I felt they were trying to just do way too much with this character. Jodie Foster (“Inside Man”) plays a ruthless Elysium politician seeking to seize control and she’s pretty terrible here. Sharlto Copley, who played Wikus in “District 9”, plays a crazy sleeper agent and delivers a very over the top performance. The other characters are not very exciting.
“Elysium” has a few interesting parts here and there but it’s not filmed very well, the special effects are surprisingly generic and many individual components seem lifted from a handful of better sci-fi movies including “Johnny Mnemonic” and “Soylent Green”. If you liked “District 9” then there’s a good chance that you will also enjoy “Elysium” but I think most moviegoers will be better off with something else. I think the movie’s fatal flaw is that it seems to want to be a social commentary on issues such as immigration and healthcare but I think something went wrong and its messages come across as awfully simplistic.