Pretty darn good

Rating: 8/10 (19 August 2013)

Not long in the future the world becomes a giant ghetto. The 1% escape to a lovely space station that looks like Halo called Elysium. There the rich jerks speak French, live in opulence and enjoy perennial health thanks to a machine that scans their body and restores their health. Foster is in charge of Homeland security and she sure acts like a neocon, while the president and some council is more forgiving.
In hell/on earth some people are lucky to have a job assembling robocops that oppress the population. Everyone in the US lives in what looks like miserable favelas inhabited by Mexicans. They all dream of going to Elysium but for the purpose of healing themselves. And there is actually a mechanism to go there in some home made spaceships run by some guy who has his own personal cheapo NASA operation going on. One of the workers is Damon who as a child was adopted by a nun and made friends with another orphan girl. He likes to challenge authority and that gets him in trouble with his robot parole officer. One day at his abusive workplace he ends up radiated with carcinogens. He has five days to live. So he makes a deal with this future high tech coyote guy who wants him to steal information about Elysium. They implant him with some electro-exoskeleton that makes him stronger and connects data to his brain.
They decide to steal the data from a 1%er pig who owns the robot factory. Incidentally, Foster is organizing a coup with him to topple the president. Damon and his crew succeed in getting the date but it is protected. They also are attacked by some infiltrated agent on earth who works for Foster. And by now Damon just happens to run into his flame from his youth who is a nurse and has a girl with leukemia. That forces Damon to take them to Elysium where he'll confront his nemesis as well. And of course the goal of the coyote guy is to legalize all the humans in Elysium.
Neill Blomcamp sure knows how to direct movies, the actions scenes are so exciting, the movie looks great, it all seems so new and fresh. He also has great ideas and his sensitivity to social issues that he manages to package in movies with popular appeal is really something special. But like most movies these days, dialog is reduced to a minimum. Add to that a foreign cast that is very hard to understand, even more so if there are all sorts of noises while they are talking.
One could interpret this movie as glorifying illegal immigration and illegal aliens. Just as with District 9, the easy superficial interpretation is also the least fruitful. Elysium presents a very likely future highlighting what is already a remarkable and absurd wealth inequality. For now the 1% are happy to rule in their gated communities over the billions of struggling. As the demographic factor is very much against them, it's not inconceivable that as the ghettos expand there is less and less space for palaces. And we see the inequality spreading beyond just income and power. It's also evident in health care, the justice system, and other areas. Political figures and celebrities are without doubt considered more "valuable" in society and the health care they get is in a different league altogether compared to the butchery that passes on as health care for the rest. Pets get better health care than the 99%.
Elysium isn't perfect. The casting is annoying (Wagner Moura and Sharlto Copley are particularly dismal when they try to give long speeches in English), the story with the girl is a bit ridiculous, the obligatory climactic fight scene with the nemesis is entirely unnecessary. Still Blomkamp continues to prove himself as one of the best directors around. He just needs to work with an additional writer, pay more attention to dialog, and tighten his stories a bit more. Looking forward to his next project.