I've got a whole bunch of reviews I need to add to my blog and quite a few of them are sci-fi flicks. Here's the first of the bunch.
Elysium (2013)
Well frankly anyone criticising this film for its left wing themes can just stop blooming whining. This is your basic Orwellian dystopian future story where the proletariat are exploited and the privileged few hold all the power. By the standards of the genre, this is probably more realistic than most. The authorities within Elysium want to keep all their invasive and oppressive technology which allows them to live in far greater luxury than those still on Earth. Yet even while the technology they value so highly is deliberately set to lessen the prospects of those on Earth, the people on Elysium are still horrified when they see that those people attempting to fly to Elysium to take advantage of the advanced medical technology are being shot down without mercy.
It was amusing to see one commenter on the IMDB forums using Ayn Randian rhetoric to criticise this movie. "Ah look," they insist, "the creative types have not demanded anything of the masses. They have made a new home for themselves away from the rest of the Earth and yet the masses still will not leave them in peace!"
This is amusing because, even if we presume that the privileged group on Elysium didn't make use of many more labourers than actually ended up living on Elysium to complete this gigantic project, there are also clear signs that the populace on Elysium rely on exploitative labour on Earth for much of their luxuries. And that is where Matt Damon's protagonist comes into this.
It's been suggested that Matt Damon's character should really have been a latino character considering that this is predominant racial group in the area where he lives. That's a fair point. Still, his character's lack of priviledge is explained by his upbringing in an orphanage, so he's very much a part of that community rather than a privileged outsider who comes in to save an exploited group that are incapable of saving themselves. It turns out that he is an ex-con trying to make good and we see how his efforts are not rewarded.
Matt Damon has an instant likeability here so when he's making the mistake of trying to joke with the robot police and receives a broken arm for his trouble, we recognise that he might be a bit lacking in common sense, but we also realise that he's being unfairly treated. Damon has the balance of this flawed character with a heart of gold set pretty carefully. It's made very clear throughout the plot that having a job on the over-populated Earth is generally pretty rare and so the factory where Damon works is able to be especially exploitative because for any employee they lose they know there will be a million more to take their place.
The world of Elysium has some very neat visual touches, but also some very neat technological elements too. One aspect that I found very appealing were the robots which do all the unpopular jobs. I've already mentioned the robot police - expected to do the mundane work of routine spot checks, and with a sufficient AI to be safely entrusted with the job. There's also a robot probation officer who can put you through to a human probation officer, but the suggestion seems to be that the human officer isn't going to be happy to be disturbed. And perhaps most obvious and yet no less effective is the robot used to convey severance packages to sacked employees.
I think I'd actually rather this film focussed more on science fiction elements like this and less on the fight sequences. "Elysium" has similar problems to "District 9" really in that the fight scenes do not really do much to add to the story, except that in "District 9" the action sequences were mostly saved to the end whereas here they come in well before the half way mark.
Everyone can see in the poster Matt Damon's electronic exoskeleton which is drilled into his bones. Though you may not be aware that Matt Damon mostly needs this because he is being weakened by the onset of radiation poisoning, rather than because he needs to be a badass. One other rather awesome piece of technology for the fights however, is a small force-shield, allowing Sharlto Copley's mercenary character to successfully fight off characters armed with firearms when his own weapon is a sword.
I went into "Elysium" expecting it to be really unimpressive, so with my expectations so far lowered this was pretty good fun. The biggest problem with "Elysium" is the dialogue. There's some particularly bad dialogue from William Fictner and Jodie Foster. Here's an example of William Fictner's dialogue in a conference call with what are presumably either his financial or political backers:
"Now, if you will excuse me, I have to not speak to you people any longer. Thank you."
On the one hand it was a good idea to take advantage of Jodie Foster's ability to speak French. It's made clear that the people of Elysium have ideals to be a superior society and that the populace are well-educated, often choosing to speak in French. So Jodie Foster's character, championing that way of life, would clearly use French quite a bit. What makes less sense is her accent when she speaks English. It's not a French accent. Goodness knows what kind of accent it is supposed to be. Now admittedly one might accept it as some strange futuristic accent (which bizarrely absolutely nobody else has), but Jodie Foster's already badly written lines are delivered so awkwardly that the accent becomes all the more obvious and troublesome.
Alice Braga gives a solid performance and seems pretty realistic when she is working as a doctor and shunning her contact with the ex-con she once grew up with. However, about half way through the film she basically turns into a damsel in distress and that was unfortunate.
Besides Matt Stone and Sharlto Copley who I've already mentioned, another shout-out needs to go out to Wagner Moura. In the character of Spider, Moura is unrecognisable by comparison to his politically right-leaning military police commander in the "Elite Squad" files. While in Elite Squad he always appeared rather cold, here in "Elysium" he's pretty endearing considering that he's playing the leader of a criminal group.
"Elysium" actually had similar problems to another Matt Damon movie: "Green Zone". As with that film there's nothing wrong with the performances, but the plot is not compelling enough and the action scenes are unable to make up for that. However, "Green Zone" wasn't exactly horrendous and "Elysium" additionally benefits from a beautiful and larger-than-life world and far more spectacular action whether it makes up for the simplistic plot or not.
In the end "Elysium" is good switch-off-your-brain entertainment. This is a great pity, since I'd been expecting serious sci-fi and earlier scenes made that seem like a reasonable expectation. But by and large, "Elysium" is simply disposable fun.
B-