Neill Blomkamp, the brain behind masterpiece, District 9 has released Elysium this year to follow up from his feature debut. This film was highly anticipated by everyone as Neill Blomkamp‘s previous work was such a hit. Unfortunately, Elysium falls short of its expectations.
Elysium is about Matt Damon‘s character “Max”, a blue collar workman on Earth who has always dreamt of going up to space station, Elysium in hopes of a better life. When Max gets injured at work and discovers he only has a few days to live, he desires to go up to Elysium where the rich dwell and have the technology to cure him. Making a deal with ally, “Spider” played by Wagner Moura and dragging his best friend, Diego Luna‘s character “Julio” along for the ride, Maxsets off on a mission in order to save his own skin.
In a world where the poor stay on a now trashed Earth, and the wealthy float around in paradise, you would think that this basis would in turn have a brilliant storyline, but it does not. All of the characters in this film are very two dimensional, flat, under developed and the film has an extreme lack of depth. What touched our hearts with Neill Blomkamp‘s District 9 is no where to be found in Elysium.
Jodie Foster who is normally a brilliant actress is just average in this film, and I believe the script is to blame. The only person that outshines the failures of this movie is the talented Sharlto Copley who wears evil well with his character, “Kruger”. Coincidentally enough, Sharlto Copley was previously in District 9as the main character. Even though Elysium was a disappointment, I am thankful that at least Neill Blomkamp invited him back to star in this film because Sharlto Copley was the only good thing about this movie. The fight scenes, the action sequences and the cinematography are great, but one cannot survive on looks alone.
Although I did enjoy it, Elysium had the ingredients to be a brilliant film but failed to deliver due to lack of depth. With all visuals and no soul, I consider Elysium to be a very forgettable film which is unfortunate because it had so much potential to be great.