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Elysium (2013): Another View by Rob Milarvie

Dir: Neill Blomkamp

This new sci-fi blockbuster is the second instalment of the South African director Neill Blomkamp after his impressive debut to cinema with gritty sci-fi District 9. Blomkamp blew audiences away with his opening picture of an alien race landing in Johannesburg and settling in the shanty towns of the city. The story evolves from this with an impressive documentary-like beginning and hosts Shartlo Copley as our protagonist.

The films economically and artistic appreciation gave the director a brilliant initial start in the film world, with a gross exceeding the $100 million mark. Plus using the marketing to address the presence of Peter Jackson as producer certainly increased the hype. But with this start, it subsequently led to Blomkamp having huge expectations for his second feature.

It was easy to understand beforehand that Blomkamp being guided by Jackson and with a small budget, it was possible to kick off his career with such a great film. However, with Jackson out of the picture and studios pumping more money into this particular film, the pressure from his higher powers to succeed and break even must have been immense.

Still, this film was prosperous in my eyes, with an intriguing story and script and brilliant lead acting by Matt Damon. It may not have been seen unanimously as a success with D9 being so successful, but I saw the improvements of bigger scale sets and CGI framework that certainly took my breath away when long shots of Earth and Elysium that were certainly stunning. Furthermore, the plausibility of such a narrative that reflects the current situations of inequality and corruptness within our world, just in a future setting truly disturbed me and it has to be congratulated to Blomkamp, now at the helm of two provocative Sci-Fi’s.

But what I personally admire about Blomkamp’s two created dystopian narratives is that we are fed into the film through a short beginning describing the current situation and we are then suddenly thrown into the established order and slowly understand the repression and diversity of lifestyles. I know it may seem conventional in some sense with films like Twelve Monkeys and John Carpenters’ Escape from New York and other both using this technique. Correspondingly, Blomkamp just directs this narrative art to a whole new level.

The synopsis of this dystopian feature is that we are set in 2154 and our planet has become a diseased infested and poverty ridden planet and the elitist of our wold have created a giant space station where they have escaped to and based refuge orbiting Earth. While now, everyone else lives in this hostile environment of oppression and survival. In this we meet our protagonist, Max (Damon) who is living a sustained existence by working in the factories that manufactures the robotic soldiers that patrol the planet and implement law and order.

After, we witness Max fall into an accident which exposes him to radiation and forces him to make a take on a huge task of travelling to Elysium to get into a ‘healing booth’ that eradicates all disease and cancer cells. Subsequently he must then go through an operation that connects his body to a mechanical exoskeleton that helps him face the robots and any enemies he must face to get to Elysium. Now, we meet the character who steals the show, Sharlto Copley (D9)! This menacing antagonist plays a mercenary who is hired to capture Max and prevent his mission succeeding and simultaneously retrieve a piece of data that Max has downloaded into his mind. Sharlto is chilling and insane which completely juxtaposes his previous persona in D9 as a geeky businessman. His performance totally stole the show and reminded very much of a futuristic Joker.

But despite all the praise, and with me absolutely loving the film as I am a huge fan of sci-fi and the fight for revolution to disrupt an oppressive regime, the film did not fully maintain the same feel I had with D9. I thought the story, the acting and the imagery was a step up from D9 but that spark and artistry I felt was lost, not hugely, just subtly. It somehow reminds me of that notion of if producers feed less money into a film; the artistic element of the film will increase. But I felt this to minor extent; people have felt it further as D9 swept people away with its low key racial parable narrative and this being perceived as a popcorn flick, which I think is rather harsh.

Finally to comment on Jodie Foster’s character Delacourt who is Defence Minister for Elysium, with a very cold and disturbed persona, coupled with a pessimistic viewpoint of Earth and attempts to repeatedly stop any visitors of Earth infesting their ‘habitat’. Foster again brings a satisfying performance, sort of the same magnitude Panic Room or Flightplan. However, it’s hard to observe a cold blooded beaurucrat or an emotionally/medically pursuing protagonist’s great performances (which they were) when the antagonist of Sharlto Copley stole every scene and played his role to absolute apex and sent chills down my spine every time he spoke with that threating South African accent and sustaining that grittiness and ruggedness that D9 had in abundance.