Why I Saw It: District 9 was such a distinctive movie, I had to see what Neil Blomkamp would do for the follow-up.
Cast: Matt Damon is in really good shape for this. I never thought of him as a particular butch guy but his is rather intimidating here. Jodie Foster is cold and calculating in a way she does well. Sharlto Copley is the opposite of his District 9 character that I'm now convinced of range that I didn't know he had before. Alice Braga is a damsel in distress that you've seen a hundred times before. What bothered me more than it probably should is that she is 13 years younger than Damon but the flashbacks make them look about the same age. It's distracting.
Plot: It's certainly social commentary and doesn't bother to be subtle about it. Matt Damon's character, Max is in the 99% and has a history of being on the wrong side of the law. He's on the straight and narrow, dreaming of getting Elysium, this paradise city in the sky, but that changes after he gets in an accident at work that leaves him with 5 days to live. At that point, it becomes about him getting to Elysium, where they have devices that can heal people in minutes. That quickly escalates to a lot of other things that are too complex to explain in a paragraph.
Elephant in the Room: Why can't he get healed on Earth? I'm glad you ask because I was wondering the same thing. The only way this movie works is to accept that the world got to be the way it is and not worry about how it happened. Because, you see, they never explain why none of the technological advances, namely these machines that fix all ailments make it down to Earth. They work down there and the devices can be transferred pretty easily. I guess the viewer is supposed to assume that absolutely everyone on Elysium is a complete dick, and what, charity of any sort is illegal. It's like watching a sitcom in which there's a series of misunderstandings to come together at the end but the only way the misunderstanding happen is by having someone say something in a way that no human ever would. You see, if I don't believe the starting point of a story, I find it hard to care about what happens from there.
To Sum Things Up:
I enjoyed this because it looks fantastic. The world is very lived-in and the action is well-staged. There needs to be more sci-fi this original in the world. I will see whatever Blomkamp follows this up with on the opening weekend. In the case of this movie, the commentary of it was distracting and the holes in the story were tough to get over. This is one of those cases where I know people on average will enjoy this more than I did and I can't fault them for that. It is well made but didn't happen to mesh with me.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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