Title: Elysium
Director: Neil Bolmkamp
Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, Talisa Soto, William Fichtner.
The South African-Canadian Neill Blomkamp has established himself as film and advertisement director, writer, producer and animator with a flair for documentary-style, cinéma vérité, hand-held technique. His upcoming science-fiction action movie, ‘Elysium,’ blends naturalistic and photo-realistic frames with breathtaking computer-generated effects.
We are in the year 2154. The third world slum is confined on planet Earth, that is overpopulated and ruined, whilst the very wealthy live on a utopian setting: Elysium, a high-tech space station, which includes access to private medical machines that offer instant cures.
Max DeCosta (Matt Damon) is a factory-worker in Los Angeles. After an industrial accident he gets contaminated with radiations and has only five days to live. His only hope of survival is getting on Elysium to be cured. His pursuit will put him against Elysium’s Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her violent police forces led by Agent Kruger (Sharlto Copley). Needless to say there’s also a touch of affair of the heart, with the platonic romance between Max and his childhood best friend Frey (Alice Braga), who is now a nurse and also wants to go on Elysium to cure her daughter from leukaemia.
The $90 million budget delivers incredible futuristic designs animated with outstanding visual effects. The story is rather straightforward and well performed by the entire cast, but some of the customary stereotypes wind up being tedious. For instance, still in the year 2154 the lower class, i.e. those living on the Earth, are associated with hispanics, and therefore speak Spanish, whilst Elysium’s population, the world’s élite, speaks French. It would have been more ironic if certain social dynamics and cliches had been warped and teased. Nevertheless this is the classical crisis flick that cries out for social redemption, where the wretched will have their happy ending and we shall all have equal rights. Amen.
Technical: A
Acting: B
Story: B
Overall: B+
Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
