The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth that's over-populated and running from pole to pole with disease. Outside of this now dwindling planet is a city on a satellite known as Elysium, a place where conveniences such as mansions, gardens, and alcoholic drinks become available. Not only that, it also holds fancy medical devices that can heal any and all diseases. The only problem with all of this is that only a select number of people can live on Elysium, while everyone else is left on Earth in a desperate struggle to survive. For this reason, many people from Earth attempt to escape to Elysium just to cure their diseases, as well as the diseases of their children. When one of these Earth dwellers by the name of Max, played by Matt Damon, gets overheated to a point of only having five days to live, he turns away from his previous attempt to leave behind his supposedly sketchy past to live a normal life and agrees to help an old gang he worked for to enter Elysium so that not only can he cure himself, but the gang can make the medical machines available to their neighborhood.
If you haven't figured out the first problem with this movie, allow me to elaborate by raising one question: Why are these medical devices only available to a certain amount of people? If the world is really that contagious, why not have these devices available for people to use so that they only die when they absolutely have to? It's not even a matter of time or money, because these devices are fast, easy to use, and not even all that costly, or if it is costly, the film never really makes that clear. I guess this is supposed to maintain population control, except even that sounds unrealistic. After all, one of humanity's most frequent goals is to always go bigger and better. On top of that, it just seems unnaturally cruel for anyone, let alone the world's governments, to let people rot and die like that. I'm not saying it would never make sense for any man to want others to die, but the film expects us to take this in naturally without any rational explanation for such behavior in its characters, as if we're supposed to say "Oh yeah, that sounds like something I would do!". That worked for District 9 because it made more sense that we would look at its aliens and assume they're unhygenic, but this just never added up for me.
Even if the film wasn't intended to have some kind of social commentary, the film doesn't even work in its own world, mostly due to very flat characters. None of the performances in this movie flesh out the characters or give them any kind of identity, yet the movie likes to throw in tidbits as if that's what fleshing them out. For example, I never would have guessed that Matt Damon's character, Max, was supposed to be a bad guy gone good if it weren't for an old friend of his bluntly telling me "You used to be on top! You used to be the crime master!" (Not a direct quote, but that's beside the point.), or that he and his friend, Fray, played by Alice Braga, were supposed to have any chemistry whatsoever if it weren't for frequent flashbacks of their little "BFF" markings. The worst, though, is Jodie Foster as the villain, Delacourt. This is about as bluntly stereotypical and one-dimensional as a "politician" villain can get. She constantly kills people before the very eyes of the civilians of Elysium, but acts like everything she's doing is within the law, even though several people constantly inform her that it's not. We never catch on to what her motivation is for this behavior, nor does her performance deliver any sense of a sinister personality. I don't really blame any of the actors for this; it's just that the characters are so paper thin that the actors most likely have no idea what to do other than just "read the script". The only actor who seems to have any clue as to what his character is supposed to do is Shartlo Copley as a psychotic assassin named Kruger, who Delacourt hires to gun down incoming Earth dwellers. This man takes his role into a lot of fun territory, showing plenty of enthusiasm. However, even he is muddled down by holding some cookie cutter characteristics without being fully fleshed out. Just because he laughs at everything he does and goes against what a lot of the characters want to have done, including Delacourt, doesn't make him a fully realized psychotic killer. It just doesn't.
The only merit I can give to this movie is its visuals. Being on a budget of over one hundred million doesn't give it quite as much production value as District 9, but it still looks gorgeous. The CGI is just a few steps away from looking durable and lifelike. On top of that, much of the machinery of this world can be occasionally fun to look at, and when I say occasionally, I mean when it's on screen. The robots, the weaponry, and the environment of Elysium is all well-crafted and very creative. If I had to complain about one thing, it's that some of the action scenes are pretty sloppy. The final battle between Max and Kruger is highly stylized and cool to look at (though, again, the characters are so flat that there's not much suspense), but some of the action in the middle suffers from the infamous "shaky cam". This technique has been suitable in films like Saving Private Ryan and The Hunger Games because it places the viewer into the experience of being in a rough environment where the characters didn't know where to go and were in a rush to get things done. Here, however, it's not quite as suitable. Max gets a "super-hydraulic" exo-skeleton installed on him, so there's no excuse for his experience to be this clumsy.
I won't deny that there is some talent in Neill Blomkamp, but Elysium is a misfire for him. While visually astonishing, it expects us to buy its social commentary and so-called "character development" way too easily without giving it proper support. It's a big step down in his career, and I can only hope he'll do better next time.
This movie is worth $2.
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