Official Synopsis
In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest who live in an overpopulated, ruined Earth. Secretary Delacourt (Foster) will stop at nothing to preserve the luxurious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium – but that doesn’t stop the people of Earth from trying to get in by any means they can. Max (Damon) agrees to take on a life threatening mission, one that could bring equality these polarized worlds.
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The movie establishes itself pretty well from the get go. We have a clear class separation between the poor folks on earth and the rich/elite (very white) folks of Elysium. The dream of the folks on earth is to get to Elysium where all your ailments are cured and all your worries of a poor, dirty, grungy, violent society are forgotten. The folks of Elysium dream of… well, they don’t want ‘those’ people (non-Elysium) sharing their dream because they’re living the dream. It’s a very simplistic story on the surface, as you don’t really have to think hard to figure out what exactly the issue is between these folks.
Enter Matt Damon’s Max, who used to jack cars and commit crimes to make a living. He’s trying to pull himself together, but the poor, brutal society in which he resides really isn’t one that is forgiving of rehabbing people like himself. The struggle for jobs and food are so terribly bad for Max and the Earthlings, that Max will do anything to keep what he has intact — including entering a robot creation room that is riddled with the possibility of radiation poisoning and almost certain death. Enter the setup, Max has to enter said room to fix a simple problem. If you haven’t already guessed, Max becomes trapped in the room and is doused with a deadly dose of radiation, which will kill him in a matter of days.
His only choice? Somehow make it to Elysium to get healed or die. His only help? A hole-in-the-wall underground revolution that will suit his body up with a powerful exoskeleton that will help him (and possibly them) find a way to Elysium. Their intentions are to get Elysium’s software system to accept everyone on earth as a resident, so they don’t get killed on the way up (and they get help from Elysium). Max is a sacrificial lamb for the planet, though he could potentially save himself in the process.
So where is the resistance to this plan? It’s in the form of a brutally-insane bounty hunter named Kruger (played by the very talented Sharlto Copley — star of District 9, if you need a reference). You instantly hate this guy and you wish nothing but the worst possible plague upon his house. He’s one of the best parts of the film and certainly doesn’t get enough credit for his role in the story. Copley’s Kruger is pretty much the complete opposite of his innocent guy role in District 9. It’s quite impressive to see this man’s range (although, his beard might be more menacing than he is in the film) and I hope to hell we see him in some bigger films in the future. As it stands with Elysium, feel free to hate his guts (because of his performance).
Kruger must stop Max before he can complete his mission. There’s a lot of cat/mouse chasing going on between the two fellows, though you would expect Kruger to constantly have the upper hand (he has done this before, so he is seasoned). Their interaction in the film is intense and worth the price of admission, but it isn’t enough to keep Elysium afloat in terms of story and character development.
Elysium isn’t a bad film, not even close to being bad, but it certainly isn’t up there with District 9 when it comes to quality and balanced storyline. Blomkamp’s idea of a class separation is certainly an interesting one and the world he constructs is, as it was with District 9, believable regardless of the sci-fi elements included. His problem with Elysium is his enthusiastic attitude of getting to the ‘good parts’ without developing the bridge to those parts. For example, while we get that Jody Foster’s Delacourt is a complete and utter bitch (enormously heartless), we never really have a healthy climb with her character towards the end where she screws over powerful individuals to get what she hopes is a permanent solution to the ‘Earth’ problem. We should want her to die and die hard in this film, but her ‘ending’ just kind of goes into a ‘whimper’ rather than a resounding ‘boom’. Why? Well, we just don’t see enough of her or her obsession with keeping the status quo. I wanted more of her and wanted more details of her willingness to do anything to get what she wants, but we never get to see that come to full fruition.
What’s also kind of poorly developed is the relationship between Max and Frey (Alice Braga), who is Max’s love interest — and a driving reason for Max to succeed in his plan. We’re to understand that Frey and Max have had some past together, but we never know what and that kind of damages how we should feel about those two characters; especially towards the end of the movie. That part of the film needed more establishing and it needed more details, but it never happened. By the way, Alice Braga is a fantastic actress in this movie and I hope to see her in future films.
There are some more elements of the movie that seemed a bit shallow, but I don’t want to give too much away. I just think that Blomkamp wasn’t patient enough to construct a fully contained and healthy world, and the characters within it. His telescope of details pulled back far enough to show these two competing societies of the haves and the have nots, but it didn’t zoom in enough to show us the individual elements and relationships that were driving both worlds into an ultimate collision. It’s got great heroes and villains, but not enough substance to make the entire story ‘great’. As it stands, the movie is ‘good’ at best.
As for the features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Engineering Utopia: Creating a Society in the Sky
– Collaboration: Crafting the Performances in Elysium
Both features are solid, though you get more if you purchase the Blu-ray. The first, Collaboration, goes into depth about how Blomkamp came up with the story, how he found his actors and what he did to shape these worlds. It’s entertaining, it’s about 20+ minutes in length and it’s worth a go. The second feature is Engineering Utopia, which shows you how Blomkamp developed his worlds and who influenced him to do so. Both features are solid, though I wish there had been commentary included in the set.