Not Sci-Fi; Political Caricature

Rating: 5/10 (19 August 2013)

I read reviews that claimed Elysium was thought provoking. It did generate a lot of questions, one of which was what the Afrikaaners with their grossly thick accents were saying. Yes, Afrikaaners. I haven't seen this many villainous Apartheid goons since Lethal Weapon 2. The villains aren't explicitly identified as being from any country because countries have been replaced by classes, but the accents of Delacort and the band of murderous mercenaries sound Afrikanner to me. Elysium is presided over by an Indian, inhabited by Caucasions, protected by white supremacists who seem to be Africa's sole representation. That leave Hispanics back on Earth. The Earth-side scenes are set in a futuristic Los Angeles that looks a lot like a Mexico City slum. The only Anglos in sight are the evil industrialist and his taskmasters...and Matt Damon. With characters painted with such a broad brush, why wasn't the protagonist' part filled by a Latino? The re-emergence of Afrikaaners as villains puzzled me until I realized that the director/writer is South African. I guess everyone has his favorite group of villains. Blomkamp's villains also include the wealthy. His heavy-handed portrayals of rich Caucasions turns everyone in this film into a caricature. I'm reminded of Rand's We the Living where rich capitalists not only oppress the people, they run over someone's puppy too. The heavy-handed absence of subtlety is typical of philosophical works. I guess that makes Elysium more of a philosophical statement than science fiction. This is a criticism of Rand's seminal work Atlas Shrugged, and it holds true for more leftward leaning dogma too. Everything is good or bad. People are evil rich or sanctified poor. The rich seem to have the resources to cast crumbs to the poor, but they won't because don't want to. The film makers turned Elysium is liberal tripe, even throwing in a quick anti-gun remark just before using those guns to fight back against their tyrannical yoke.
The special effects are okay. Elysium is probably the least impressive of images. The mercs airship is probably the most impressive effect but even it is nothing special.
It's hard to judge the actors' performances because of their comic strip dialog, but Sharlto Copley makes a damned good villain. His only fault really was his heavy accent made it difficult to understand him at times. His character even had a bit of depth in contrast to the one-dimensional nature of the rest of the cast.
Elysium makes a so-so way to spend an afternoon...if you don't mind being slapped around for having money enough to buy a ticket, popcorn, and soda.