Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Elysium


Neill Blomkamp's previous film "District 9" surprised me with its focus on transformation.  Humphrey Bogart perfected the hard-case to nice-guy film persona in films like "To Have and Have Not", "Key Largo" and of course "Casablanca".  Neill Blomkamp took the concept to extreme in "District 9"; his main character, played by Sharlto Copley, goes through a drastic metamorphosis, in more ways than one.  While "District 9" was an exceptional science fiction movie, with groundbreaking special effect integration, ultimately what set the film apart is its focus on character.  "Elysium" represents a step forward in the effects category, yet unfortunately centers around a weak story and one-dimensional characters.    The premise is simple; Earth of the future is overpopulated and trashed, so the rich elite have built themselves a space station (called Elysium) within view of Earth, to live luxuriously and carefree.  I think Blomkamp must have been striving for allegory with many details in this film, but the execution falls short resulting in laughable excess.  For example, building Elysium so close to Earth might make sense from an economic point of view; during construction this would have been handy.  But upon viewing the film, it seems more or less that the rich are just trying to stick-it to the rest of us by building something so shiny and wonderful just out of reach.  Rich people are so mean. 
 
While the film never rises to the level of greatness seen in "District 9", its special effects and action sequences distract us enough that we may not even notice.  This time Copley plays the villain, and it's been a while since a villain has deserved death more.  Where movies like "Iron Man" fail, is the moment the mask comes on, and the real is replaced by cartoon.  Here, man fights man (albeit supped-up bionic men), so even though special effects are everywhere, there is an ever looming sense of danger.  Ultimately, I find myself comparing this movie to the recent Tom Cruise movie "Oblivion".  While both were basically "Fern Gully" for grown-ups, "Oblivion" did a better job of hiding it.  

1 comment:

Nathaniel said...

I just saw Oblivion and was not impressed, and if you are going to see a Matt Damon film I would suggest paying $1.23 at Redbox to see Promised Land (not great but enjoyable) or... wait to pay $23 to see him in IMax spandex as the Caped-Crusader's side kick (had to get my non-original jab in somewhere).