Elysium (2013) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / September 9, 2013

Whenever a director breaks through with only his first feature film, expectations run high on whatever he’ll do next. Neil Blomkamp did just that in 2009 with District 9, a film much liked at the time (not by me though).

            That was a sci-fi film based on the following premise: what would happen if the aliens finally landed? Instead of it being utopian (see Close Encounters) or terrifying (see countless horror films), it reverses everything with the aliens being forced to live in South-African slums. The premise was interesting and it had some interesting ideas, but the last half hour betrayed the rest of the film. Elysium doesn’t suffer from the same problem, which doesn’t make it the better film, but it does make it the more consistent one.

            We get an obligatory flashback where two kids dream of going to the Eden that is the space-station called Elysium, a place where the rich live in peace and have access to instance-cures for every possible ailment, whether internal or external. Max and Frey dream of going there and Max, of course, promises that he’ll take them there someday. Years later, they’re both grown up with Frey (Alice Braga) working as a nurse and Max (Matt Damon) working in a factory, although he also has a history of stealing cars. He becomes exposed to radiation in the factory and is told he only has a few days to live. Realizing the medical bays in Elysium could save his life, he seeks out a criminal ‘friend’ who tells him he can get him to Elysium with a fake ‘passport’ if Max does a job for him. Of course, this is no ordinary job, leading to events which pits him against Delacourt (Jodie Foster), Elysium’s Secretary of Defense, and mad ex-Elysium agent Kruger (Sharlto Copley). Despite doing it out of self-interest, he eventually becomes the only hope for mankind on earth.

            The first thing that springs to mind when thinking about this film is ‘missed opportunities’. There’s a scene where it seems like a conflict will arise between Max’s own desire and the fate of mankind ( ‘the-needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few’). This immediately sounds promising. You start thinking ‘maybe he will have to choose between his own well-being and the health of mankind on Earth’. Unfortunately, this is ultimately avoided. Another missed opportunity is the lack of a clearly explained world. We are dropped in a typical dystopian, cyberpunk-ish world where the rich are rich, young and healthy, living comfortably on Elysium and the poor struggle on a desolated Earth. This premise is in itself not the problem. The problem is the lack of ‘history’. How did we get here? Another question in the same category: if there are so many med-bays on Elysium, why not manufacture more and place them on Earth so the rest of the people can benefit from them? The fact that the world created in Elysium is underwritten definitely lets this film down, especially during the climax where I was supposed to feel elated, but instead didn’t feel much of anything.

            Speaking of underwritten, Jodie Foster’s character also fits that description. It’s always awkward when famous actors are used for parts that eventually do little more than belittle their filmography. Foster’s Delacourt is (up to a point) the film’s antagonist, but remains a boring, ‘the-end-justifies-the-means’ kind of villain.

            The music, while functional, firmly resides in Cliché Valley. If it doesn’t smash your eardrums, Hans Zimmer style, then it tries to appeal to your emotions with those overdone exotic, female laments. Underwritten….literally.

            It may sound like I’m bashing the film (I am), but it’s not really a bad film. It checks the basic amount of boxes for a film to be ‘decent’: we do want Max to succeed (which has more to do with Matt Damon’s acting, I think), we want both him and Frey to survive their predicaments, we want Kruger to die, etc. But in the end, I expected way more of a sci-fi film of this caliber. It’s the lack of interesting and well-explored sci-fi themes that disappoints me the most. I’m aware I’m judging the film by what it lacks and not by what it does have, but that’s what happens with sci-fi films.

            I realized beforehand that Blomkamp’s main problem would be to balance his sci-fi ideas and themes with the obligatory action, necessary for mainstream appeal. He has both succeeded and failed. He has succeeded in the sense that Elysium is the more balanced, consistent film when compared to District 9. It doesn’t suffer from a too noticeable shift in tone (like District 9’s last half hour). On the other hand he has failed in the sense that the film is only more consistent in its use of straightforward action, depriving the film—and subsequently its audience—of well-explored sci-fi themes and concepts and thus a more interesting, daring sci-fi experience.