Elysium. Yet another movie letdown in 2013’s bucket. The films synopsis follows a poor chimney-sweeper named Matt (Played by Matt) in the year 1254, in an interesting and original take, on how we developed into the modern society we live into today. In this movie universe, planet earth is a desolate wasteland and its inhabitants have been divided into two colonies. The first colony struggle to survive in this wasteland, whilst the second live in luxury on a spaceship-like haven; just below the earth’s atmosphere, called Elysium. Matt has one goal - to break into Elysium and cure his Cancer and Aids ridden body, using the medical beds, which can cure any disease known to man.
A story so simple, its entire
premise is told in a 3minute trailer, but takes 2 very long hours on the big
screen - with no character development whatsoever.
Elysium was directed by Neill
Blomkamp, who’s other work includes District 9 & Star Wars I-VI. Although
the plot lingered like a really bad smell, Blomkamp’s previous work on Sci-Fi’s
are unprecedented. His eye to detail really shows in this film and overall,
Elysium is a very visually striking piece of work. He constantly tries to
distance this film from the generic sci-fi genre; for instance his use of
spaceships with bright white interiors, robots with a defiant attitude and
characters with accents that don’t exist in our current period of time. These
are concepts the sci-fi genre has never seen.
Blomkamp is Notorious amongst
movie nerds for adapting themes and issues in today’s society into his films –
apartheid being the most recent issue, which he tackled in District 9. Elysium
didn’t escape the words of this preacher either, as we were constantly being
force fed and gagged, with the issues of health care and immigration.
The acting was nothing short
of special either. As a man suffering from both Aids and Cancer, you can’t help
but feel the story could have explored the relationship between him and his
clichéd love interest a little bit more. Perhaps then we could have seen some
sort of character development.
Probably the best thing to
come out of this film is the bad guy Kruger, played by Sharlto Copley. Such a
fine actor who has shown such range and conviction in portraying character in
every film he’s been in recently. Most notably, ‘The Joker’ in ‘Batman: The
Dark Knight.’ His portrayal of Kruger was no different in Elysium. He plays
unquestionably the biggest menacing, ‘thunder
cunt’ the silver screen has seen in a very long time. As rude as it sounds,
even the pope would go as far as using such vulgarisms to describe this
character. Never again, will you come across a character that can slap a
mothers face in front of her child and shout at her: “Keep your eyes closed! Keep your fucking eyes closed!” and be so
polite about the entire situation.
Kruger is the one obstacle
stopping Matt from entering Elysium. He was originally hired by the corrupted
government running Elysium, to stop illegal immigrants from entering and
playing American football in tuxedos; which were commonly stolen during their
time here. However, Kruger was recently promoted to specifically keeping out
the infected/sick immigrants from Earth’s wasteland. Cue the epic game of hide
and seek and the battle of wits – and that’s our film.
Jodie Foster also stars in
Elysium, as Krugers boss. Her entire existence in the film is completely overshadowed
by Copleys performance, and is easily forgotten in T-minus 20minutes after
leaving the cinema.
In all fairness, the film
lacks in depth and drags on far too long, making it extremely unforgettable by
the time you’ve even made it back home.
Oh… before I wrap this up…
Matt is given a metallic spine halfway through the film, and unexplainably gets
super strength and can knock ten bags of sugar out of fully functioning robot… Yeah…
How’s that for a plot twist…
Have you seen Elysium? Do you
agree with me? Did you like it, love it, hate it? Let us know below.
- Tommy Von Yinkelsbierg
signing out!
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