This thought-provoking action SF film is a metaphor.

Rating: Null/10 (27 August 2013)

This futuristic film presents us with a dystopian vision of a future Earth which is overpopulated and polluted. There is however also a utopia, 'Elysium', which orbits Earth and is the home of a rich elite who have had it built and now have a carefree existence living there.
Film opens with shots of a young boy who bears a remarkable resemblance to Matt Damon the star of this film. Earth has been in a bad state all of his life and his desire is to go to Elysium. People on earth do go to Elysium though. However they do this illegally. If they pay enough money to the people-smugglers they get taken on craft that fly illegally to the artificial world and sneak in.
Trying to stop the illegal immigrants and deal with other security matters, are the security personnel. They are human and robotic, and are based, and act, on both Earth and Elysium.
Matt Damon plays the part of a simple worker, luckier than most of his unemployed fellow neighbours living in the slum, an ex-criminal who has now turned his back on crime. However his life and work are both hard and dangerous. Life on Earth is cheap, and unlike on Elysium, by contrast the medical services are poor.
Worker Damon suffers an industrial injury that requires treatment and is the plot device that requires him to travel to Elysium. There is a plan to get him there but things don't work out as planned.
In some ways this film reminded this reviewer of 'Demolition Man'. In this futuristic film, just like 'DM', the people are politely nasty. They are abrupt, rude and very plain-speaking, but all this is done in a very polite way of speaking. Some of the time anyway.
Casting has been done in such a way as to emphasize the points that the story is trying to make. The people of Earth inhabit slums and shanty-towns. They look like poor immigrants and peasants anywhere. By contrast up in Elysium the people look and sound very different. Accents and language also play a part in illustrating this.
Earth is crime-ridden and covered in graffiti, whilst Elysium is a peaceful haven. So for Elysium to be protected from the violent gun-wielding people of Earth, Elysium must also use some violence for protection. This requires not just robots, but also human security and military personnel. These military operatives, and their world, and outlook, are portrayed well, and stereotypical casting and accent choices make their attitudes and role unambiguous to the viewer. They also function in this film to pose the question to the viewer of the role of the military in society.
Star Matt Damon gives a great performance in his role as a simple worker. However some of the decisions of our simple worker do not impress. His judgements are a little too simple and he makes some bad decisions. Damon is well supported by a good cast. The great Jodie Foster has second billing, however her character is strange and even stranger is how the film-makers have used Miss Foster. A powerful performance came from Sharlto Copley who dominated in every scene he was in. This reviewer was happy too, to see William Fichtner, a well-recognized face, that this reviewer last saw giving a tremendous performance in 'Heat'.
With all the robots, this film reminded this reviewer of 'Oblivion' from earlier this year. There was a similar theme of a dirty Earth below and a shiny top-world. However this film is somewhat less unoriginal. Some scenes also reminded this reviewer of 'Star Trek Into Darkness' another film from earlier this year. However unlike that film this seemed less of just a collection of action scenes, though dumb decisions by characters did cause some of that.
The film set up the hero to have some serious fights with a seriously bad guy. Just like 'Demolition Man', sadly however, some fight scenes were filmed in such a way that it was difficult to even see what was happening, they were that fast. Special effects concerning the gadgets were all uniformly good. The high-tech gear, the low-tech salvaged gear, the flying machines; all were totally believable throughout the film. One item that jarred was the total absence of background music. Instead we were attacked by very loud music that was far too intrusive. On the other hand, all scenes, sets and locations were good, particularly of the grim cities of Earth.
Better than the comparable 'Oblivion', it is on a par with 'Star Trek Into Darkness' and 'World War Z'. Rather like 'WWZ', the narrative of this film gives us comparisons with present day Earth and it's problems, and poses the question at what cost can you build a utopia, when is the cost too high, and how do you balance the rights and duties of the people within the utopia, with the rights and duties to those who are outside of it? 8/10.