In the year 2154 the separation between those with wealth and privilege and those without is manifest in the form of an orbiting space station called Elysium, the place where the rich not only live in luxury but avail themselves of technology that can quickly diagnose and cure sickness and disease. Those without the financial means to qualify for life on Elysium remain on an Earth devastated by overpopulation, illness and crime. When an accident leaves Max in need of Elysium’s life-saving technology, he will stop at nothing to get it, despite the impregnable nature of the off-planet Paradise.

Writer/Director Neill Blomkamp’s (District 9) latest science fictional outing is a visual feast, providing many a sense-of-wonder moment in its rendering of the station that is Elysium. A heavy-handed message about the distribution of wealth, health care reform and immigration coupled with rated-R level language and violence threaten to overwhelm what is ultimately an enjoyable, if flawed, film. If you can leave your feelings about the political arguments at the door you will mostly likely find an entertaining science fiction/action experience with special effects worth seeing on the big screen and a story that is fair yet may not inspire the need for repeat viewings.

My rating: 7/10 stars

I had only seen the trailer for Elysium once or twice, but knew because of the presence of Matt Damon and the promise of great science-fictional eye candy, that I would be seeing it in the theater. Not wanting to risk a big hit to the entertainment budget we choose to go see this on Saturday morning. When I got to the theater and was reading that the film had acquired its “R” rating because of excessive language and violence I admit to being a bit worried. Blomkamp’s District 9 tried, and possibly succeeded, to set the record for the most uses of the F-bomb in a single film. I was in the mood to be entertained, not overwhelmed with aural and visual offensiveness. Thankfully the film did not prove memorable for all the wrong reasons. That isn’t to say that the language and violence aren’t present, they are, and in a quantity wholly unnecessary for good storytelling. A film like this would generate more revenue and better serve its target audience with a PG-13 edit. But for all that I felt like the director made an effort to tone down some of the more visceral violence and surprisingly took the time to build the film’s story.

Elysium is a film that invites criticism, as so many action films, and particularly science fiction films, do. There are logic and plot loop-holes that are there for you to pick apart if you so choose to do so. However, I found it easy to set those things aside and simply enjoy the film for what it is, ignoring the overt political/social messages. Not because those messages are not important, but to focus on them at the level the film wants you too make it comically heavy-handed.

Early on in the film the major story arc is revealed, thus I was surprised to find that Blomkamp actually took his time in getting his main character to Elysium. With effective pacing and efforts to reveal the world-building through character interaction, Elysium ignores the temptation for non-stop action and allows the viewer to get a good sense of the state of the world in the mid twenty second century. The film has its violent action moments, but having finished it I was fully aware of many moments in the film where Blomkamp could have chosen to emphasize the violence but chose pull it back. There are unnecessary moments meant to generate a reaction, including one over-the-top head injury that is laughable in both its execution and for the fact that the character remained alive long enough to take advantage of Elysium’s healing technology.

The casting of the film was well done. Matt Damon became a favorite for me with the first Bourne film, and I find myself wanting to pull out the trilogy and watch them all again. He plays the role of the reluctant anti-hero well. Alice Braga plays a would-be love interest who is actually given some worthwhile purpose early in the film even if the role later relegates her to damsel-in-distress. Jodie Foster plays the head of defense on Elysium and does so with a lot of moxie. As the true villain of the piece she shines. Much of the rest of the cast is also well-chosen even if they are simply there to point viewers towards the main characters. I do believe the casting director for Elysium deserves award consideration simply for finding child actors to play the younger versions of Matt Damon’s and Alice Braga’s characters who look as if they really could have been them as children. More than once I was surprised by the similarities.

Where Elysium stood out for me as a film worth seeing on the big screen was in its visuals. I went to a newer local theater that has one large screen built in homage to the days of big theaters. It was the perfect place to see the effects shots and renderings of the space station. Wow! Makes me want to see someone make a film version of Larry Niven’s seminal classic, Ringworld. Science fiction gripped my imagination because of Star Wars and the sense of wonder those images inspired. I felt a similar sense of wonder for science fictional settings whenever the camera would focus on Elysium. I loved the idea of a world built that way, with the landscape curving into the distance. The architectural design for the buildings, the design of the ships used to ferry passengers and cargo back and forth to Elysium, and the design of the various robots on the station and on Earth were a delight to view. I also enjoyed the set design choices for the devastated parts of Earth featured in this story. They weren’t beautiful, per se, but I enjoyed the choices made in visualizing that particular future. I will see the film again at some point simply because I want to spend more time focusing on what I missed in the effects shots.

There is a lot to potentially like about Elysium and there is a lot to criticize if you so choose. Both are valid ways to look at the film. Science fiction has been examining the ideas of a future world of haves and have-nots for many decades. In that sense there is nothing new here. However the present social and political issues are very thinly veiled in Elysium and thus invite feelings of contempt for being overly preachy. As with any story envisioning this type of future, the answers to humanities woes are far less simple in “reality” than the solutions generated on film. But that does make for some very interesting discussion topics once the credits roll. Elysium is far from the best film I’ve seen this year, however it met all my expectations and proves to me that Neill Blomkamp was not a one-hit-wonder with District 9. I hope he continues to build upon his science fictional oeuvre. If so, you can count on my theater admission revenue right now.