Elysium

Rating: 5/10 (15 September 2016)

I mainly remembered hearing about this film because of the leading actor, including the poster where he is bald, and I knew it was something to do with space or the future, so I was looking forward to it, directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Chappie). Basically set in 2154, the population has been divided into two social classes, the wealthy and the poor, while the poor have remained on Earth, the wealthy people live on Elysium, a gigantic space station and habitat with advanced technology, including the Med-Bay, machines that can cure all diseases, reverse ageing and regenerate body parts. Earth has become exhausted, due to overpopulation and pollution, there is starvation, and little technology and medical care, a long-running feud between the rich and poor citizens has been going on, the poor people want the Elysium technology to cure their medical ailments. Former car thief Max Da Costa (Matt Damon) is on parole, he lives in the ruins of Los Angeles and works at an assembly line for Armadyne Corp, creating weaponry for Elysium, and robots that police Earth, the company is run by John Carlyle (William Fichtner), original designer if Elysium. One day Max has an industrial accident, when he is trapped in a chamber and hit by a lethal dose of radiation, he is rescued but told he only has five days left to live, desperate for a cure he needs a way to get to Elysium. At Elysium, three ships full of illegal immigrants from Earth approach and try to land, Defense Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) orders sleeper agent Kruger (Sharlto Copley) to shoot them down, two are destroyed, killing all on-board, the third makes it, but all on-board are either killed or arrested and deported. Max and his friend Julio (Diego Luna) get help from smuggler Spider (Wagner Moura), he agrees to get him to Elysium, if he can steal financial information from Carlyle, Max is surgically attached to a powered exoskeleton. Max is able to shoot down Carlyle's ship, a firefight ensues between a team of Spider's men and security droids, Carlyle is fatally wounded, Max is able to download the program to his suit's neural implant, but it is unstable due to encryption. Delacourt is alerted of the data theft, she secretly reinstates Kruger to recover the program, in the shootout Julio is killed and Max is injured, he gets help from his childhood friend Frey Santiago (Alice Braga), she begs him to take her daughter Matilda (Emma Tremblay), who has leukaemia, with him to Elysium to be cured, but he refuses to protect them. After Max leaves, Frey is brutally interrogated by Kruger and two mercenaries Drake (Brandon Auret) and Crowe (Josh Blacker), Kruger realises Matilda is sick, she and Frey are taken prisoner aboard his ship, his drones hunt for Max, Delacourt buys time to recover Carlyle's program by ordering an airspace lockdown over Los Angeles. Spider discovers the program taken by Max can be used to make all Earth residents Elysian citizens, but the lockdown makes it impossible to leave Earth, Max makes a bargain with Kruger, unaware he has already found she assisted him, and has her and Matilda hostage, as the ship leaves, Spider and men also get aboard. A fight ensues and a grenade explodes, the ship crashes on Elysium, Frey runs with an unconscious Matilda to the nearest house to find and use a Med-Bay, but it can only used by Elysium citizens, at that moment Crowe subdues Frey. Max, Frey and Matilda are taken to Delacourt, who orders the download of the program, but it will kill Max, and she orders Frey and Matilda to be locked up, meanwhile Kruger is restored in a Med- Bay, he kills Delacourt for criticising his recklessness, then he orders Drake and Crowe to exterminate the Elysian political officers to take control. Meanwhile Max escapes confinement, and uses Carlyle's program to give everyone on Earth Elysian citizenship, Max then kills Crowe before he can kill or sexually assault Frey, he also kills Drake, Spider has one of his men escort Frey and Matilda to a Med-Bay. They are then ambushed by Kruger, equipped with a far superior military-grade exoskeleton to Max's, in the fight Max rips out Kruger's neural implant, rendering his suit immobile, Kruger arms a grenade intending to kill himself and Max, but Max releases him and hurls him over a cliff to his death. Spider realises in Elysium's computer core that Max will be killed when the program is activated, Max activates it himself, as he dies, Elysium's computer core reboots and every Earth resident is registered as an Elysian citizen, robots with President Patel (Faran Tahir) refuse to arrest Spider, now he is recognised as a citizen, Matilda is cured, and a huge fleet of medical ships are sent by the computer to treat people on Earth. Also starring Maxwell Perry Cotton as Young Max, Jose Pablo Cantillo as Sandro, Adrian Holmes as Manuel and Michael Shanks as CCB Agent. Damon is pumped up and will do whatever it takes to save himself from death, Foster has a dodgy accent (and you can tell has been dubbed in places) but is a good chilling malevolent villainess, and Blomkamp regular Copley is alright as the creepy ground agent. Blomkamp brings similar narratives like in District 9, about social inequality, with a higher budget the special effects and star names are bigger, there are a good amount of exciting sequences with explosions and advanced machines, and the imagery is cool, Elysium looks just like the ship from 2001: A Space Odyssey, it may be patchy in places, but overall it was an interesting science-fiction thriller. Worth watching!