3.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity, gore and strong bloody violence
By Derrick Bang
Based on the evidence thus far,
filmmaker Neill Blomkamp has only one story to tell.
Elysium feels much like his previous film, District 9, writ larger: another saga of
oppressed “aliens” seeking a way to rebel against their cruel and privileged
overlords. The setting and opposing teams have changed slightly, and Blomkamp
clearly has a bigger budget this time at bat, but the key plot points are essentially
the same; even the hardware and weaponry look familiar.
 |
| His impulsive plans having failed yet again, Max (Matt Damon) finds himself trapped on a medical table, while the coldly arrogant Delacourt (Jodie Foster) orders some purloined computer data stripped from his brain ... not at all bothered by the fact that this process will kill him. |
That said, political oppression
has been a big-screen sci-fi staple going all the way back to 1927’s Metropolis, and it often produces great
drama. So we can forgive Blomkamp the familiarity ... this time. (He would be
wise, however, to move in a different direction henceforth.)
The South African-born filmmaker
has a solid eye and ear for social strife — no surprise, given his homeland —
which contributed, in great part, to the narrative power of District 9. Now embraced by the seductive
lure of Hollywood, Blomkamp has turned his disapproving eye on the United
States, and its dysfunctional immigration policy; the results aren’t likely to
be embraced by red staters.
The year is 2154, and the entire
Earth has become an environmental wasteland, ruined by industrial excess, land
mismanagement, resource depletion and various other unchecked global horrors we
currently practice, with no eye toward future consequences. Every country, in
turn, has become part of a planetwide ghetto, the 99 percent left to scrabble
and squabble among themselves.
But not entirely. Movement and
behavior are monitored by android peacekeepers that employ computer-chip
tracking to maintain a veritable police state bereft of basic human decency.
And humor: Just as it isn’t smart, in our here and now, to crack wise when
stopped by a traffic cop, it is sheer folly to act smug with one of these
gun-toting “law officers.”
George Orwell’s influence weighs
heavily, and his vision has come to pass: Big Brother really is watching, and doing so from a massive
orbiting space station dubbed Elysium, where the very wealthy have fled in
order to enjoy a life of pleasure and privilege among lush gardens and sparkling
architecture. Automated med-bays can repair, reconstruct or eradicate anything,
from broken bones to cancer.
Blomkamp knows his science-fiction,
Elysium being a verdant cross between the domed forests of 1972’s Silent Running, and the technological
wonders of Larry Niven’s Ringworld
novels.
