Film Review: Elysium

Director: Neill Blomkamp

The second from film from South African director Neill Blomkamp, his first film District 9 was a commercial and critical success making his second film much anticipated. He also brings back Sharlto Copley who was the star of District 9 with his distinctive accent. Like its predecessor, Elysium deals with political issues such as immigration, overpopulation and the class system but fails miserably in this instance to more than hint at it in the opening act.

Max Da Costa (Matt Damon) wearing the exo-skeleton

The world is now split in two, with the poor living on an overcrowded and devastated Earth whilst the rich live on a luxurious space station called Elysium. The main plot for the film is that Max (Damon) is involved in an industrial accident that means he is going to die of radiation poisoning. The only way to stop this happening is to smuggle himself to Elysium and use the state of the art Medi-Bay they have which can cure all known human diseases and injuries.

The opening 15mins set up an intriguing story about the two worlds that the humans now have due to the problems on Earth. Although more should have been done to reveal the backstory of how we got to this point as a species and how the space station Elysium was conceived as well as how it was decided exactly that you were allowed to live there. District 9 did a great job of making a statement about politics, race and immigration as it retained that at the core of the films plot where as here it is quickly discarded in favour of fighting robot scenes and chases. By the final act I'd already lost interest in whether Max would manage to heal himself.

Downtown Los Angeles on a deprived Earth

Matt Damon is clearly comfortable in the lead role of an action movie but is never really stretched here, Sharlto Copley ends up in a not too dis-similar role to District 9 when he goes on the run whilst Jodie Foster is totally uninteresting as the main antagonist. It was a film that should have been so much more but descended into another action movie involving super strong robots fighting.

1.5/4 Good original idea ruined by the need for another boring action movie