K-SCORE: 10
Writer/Director: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley
Spoiler Level: too dumb to spoil
Elysium is heaping pile of film horse crap. In a story that doesn’t make sense, Blomkamp manages to agitate by shoving shallow political commentary on classism, global warming, and the evils of rich people down the throats of the viewers trying to figure out what the hell is going on. His array of inconsistent and inconceivable sci-fi ideas speak to the fact that he was likely among the least talented people who worked on District 9.
“he’s just a biological thumb drive”
The entirety of Elysium’s populace seems inexplicably malevolent. They have a creche that automatically heals people that enter it, and for some reason have elected not to tap the huge market of the unhealthy Earth-dwellers. How are they making all of their money? It’s not economics. Exchanges have to take place. There can’t be a ring of the wealthy blasting apart any intruders unless they provide some good or service. And with regard to message, that’s as specific as I can get. Nothing about the dystopia presented on Earth or the utopia on Elysium is plausible and yet the dynamic between the two locations is at the heart of the conflict.
Supposedly. The poorly constructed characters have motivations that are either ridiculous or couldn’t be rationalized. I can’t figure out why anyone is doing anything they’re doing. There is Damon’s character with a mech-suit on and information being uploaded into his brain, which doesn’t actually integrate with his thoughts - he’s just a biological thumb drive I suppose - and then there is Copley the assassin, who seems to have a personal grievance against Damon and essentially everyone he encounters, but his anger is baseless and so extreme as to be self-destructive. How he had thrived in the universe prior to the events of the film is mysterious. Foster, much like the foreman that gets Damon injured, only wants to see the poor squirm beneath her metaphorical boot. And no one else got enough screen time for me to hazard a guess as to what the fuck they are doing.
Acting wise, Jodie Foster made a number of crazy decisions with her antagonist, trying desperately to do anything to create an interesting human being. Well Jodie, you really fell flat on your face there. You should have copied Damon and gone generic in this thing that is so obviously poorly written as to be unsalvageable.
Stylistically the whole film is heavy-handed to say the least. Half of all shots are of graffiti. Blomkamp overuses slow motion and handheld cam to the point where I was looking at the screen praying that sometime soon I would be able to actually see an entire scene steadily and in real time. So even had the story made some sense, it would have been a struggle to watch.
The greatest enjoyment I got was reading on IMDB that Blomkamp wanted to get South African rapper Ninja or Eminem to play the lead, but they both turned down the role, so he had to settle with the choice of… Matt Damon. That’s like saying, I really wanted Stephenie Meyer to write my biography, but she refused so I had to get Norman Mailer.