A Memerizing Sci Fi Socio-Political Commentary

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2019)

19 August 2013. It appears that director Neill Blomkamp has found a much more even and polished sci fi thriller in Elysium than his last disappointing turn as director in District 9 (2009). In Elysium there is a believable tragic hero portrayed by Matt Damon and a consistently cold, underplayed Secretary of Defense played by a now older looking Jodie Foster (interestingly with some overtones to former Secretary of Defense Hillary Clinton's own physical transformation over time). Like Crash (2004), the audience is immersed into a politically charged topics of health care and immigration which strike deep chords of discontent for those who can appreciate the current political state of the United States. What's rather ominous at the same time breathtaking is the possibility that some of the slum footage in Elysium may be just at outgrowth of real actual location shots around this planet that would only heighten the deepening visual reality blurring both our present sociological tragedy wrought by the frightening magnifying class divisions facing world today and what it is likely to become in the near future.
Neill Blomkamp has avoided the wasted pseudo-docu style of District 9 and The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Cloverleaf (2008), incorporated a judicious use of rich flashbacks, and created a emotionally resonating straight forward storyline, almost potentially mythical in its origins for future generations of this mythical future scenario. Unlike the logical flaws found in District 9, Elysium only once glosses over its technically intact storyline for laypeople. The one glaring problem is the ease by which one the Elysium-bound ships conveniently slips into Elysium airspace. Blomkamp retains justifiably the rich and sweeping visual design of the movie while including a politically and personally potent story. The only slight dissonance is the script outline that involves the coup plot that interestingly has some overtones to the current plight in Egypt. Even more interestingly is the resemblance of this movie to the core outline to Demolition Man (1993), except without the mesmerizing future talk or even the more recent Upside Down (2013) and has the similar emotive power of human perseverance and hardship as Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (2006) or a less than epic version of Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves (1990). Other class movies would include Gattaca (1997), Fahrenheit 451 (1966). As starkly rich as THX-1138 (1971) was Elysium is as messy and chaotically amazing, echoing the horrors of today's slums and governmental insensitivity around the world and here at home.
Overall, this movie is an engaging and personally riveting movie, a great reminder for those of the mass audience to reflect on the current state of affairs in the United States and resonates with the anger and frustration that the masses are experiencing at the hands of those who have the power and control. It holds out both moral outrage and a tenuous glimmer of hope for the rest of us or perhaps its just a salve to keep us in our places.