Elysium is the much anticipated follow-up to Neill Blomkamp’s 2009 hit, District 9. Once more Blomkamp is in expansive, Sci-Fi mode, this time imagining a future version of the earth where the richest of the rich, the one-percent have decided to create an off-world colony, Elysium, a giant spinning space-station that orbits securely above the earth offering them a gated sanctuary and preserving their “way of life.”
What remains of humanity lives in dusty squalor back on earth. It’s here we met a good-hearted, but roguish Max (Matt Damon), who grows up in an orphanage and from childhood promises Frey (Alice Braga) he will one day take her up to Elysium. Circumstance, lack of wealth and two key adversaries stand in the way of his dream; Delacourt (Jodie Foster) the autocratic head of security for Elysium and Kruger (Sharlto Copley), the earth based mercenary hired by Delacourt to handle potential breaches of Elysium’s security.
While the obvious difference between the residents of Elysium and those left on earth is the disparity in the wealth and luxury they each enjoy, the story is motivated by another key difference, their access to healthcare. On earth hospitals are antiquated, understaffed and overcrowded. But, Elysium’s residents have, in their own homes, a magical day-bed-like device that cures any disease or severe injury in seconds and seems to prolong the Elysians life-expectancy far beyond our current norms.
Given the US Government seems willing to tear itself apart over access to healthcare, the plot doesn’t seem as forced as it might otherwise have appeared. That the film inches towards a “logical” outcome serves to evidence the perspective of the film-makers on this issue. And, while we might applaud this ideological stance more than the philosophically driven Sci-Fi failures of the year, Oblivion and After Earth, it nonetheless feels we are watching an elaborately decorated argument, rather than visually engaging story.
Part of what made District 9 so compelling was that tech seemed secondary to the story and the characters evoked real emotion. In Elysium, the tech is the story and the characters feel draw in only the faintest of outline. We know the basic markers of their lives, but as the film progresses, the gaps are seldom filled and so, both their fears and their sacrifices fail to move us. What remains is not a cinematic failure, but, much like the bulky and inelegant exoskeleton Damon wears for much of the film, a workman like bit of craft that does what is required of it and no more.
