Empty-Headed "Elysium"

I went into "Elysium" with reduced expectations. I'd been warned that Neil Blomkamp's new science-fiction allegory, the follow up to his excellent "District 9," was a much simpler and less ambitious story that was more concerned with being an action-packed summer blockbuster. However, I wasn't prepared for how much of a step down from "District 9" it would be.

Things start off well enough. We're introduced to the world of 2154, where most of the population lives on an overpopulated, polluted Earth in poverty. The elites long ago fled to an orbiting space station called Elysium, which is visible from Earth. In the slums of Los Angeles lives a former orphan and car thief named Max Da Costa (Matt Damon), now a blue collar factory worker just trying to make an honest living. His childhood friend Frey (Alice Braga) is a nurse at a nearby hospital. Max always dreamed of going to Elysium, but illegal ships carrying non-citizens are turned away or shot down by Elysium's zealous Secretary of Defense, Jessica Delacourt (Jodie Foster). However, when Max receives a lethal dose of radiation poisoning, his only chance for survival is reaching Elysium, which has special Med-Pods that can save him.

You might notice that the basics of the plot are pretty close to "District 9." We have a protagonist who has a serious medical condition that requires him to undertake a hero's journey and transcend the broken systems of a dystopian society. The difference this time is that there's so much more typical action movie business tacked on. Max not only has a love interest in Frey, but Frey has a little daughter Matilda (Emma Tremblay), who is also sick and needs to get to Elysium. Delacourt is not only enforcing the totalitarian rules of this society, but also plotting a coup with corrupt industrialist John Carlyle (William Fitchner). But if that wasn't enough villainy to deal with, there's also the mercenary Kruger (Sharlto Copley), who does most of their dirty work, and provides an excuse for one-on-one fight scenes with Damon. Oh, and there's even the loyal ethnic friend who gets the short end of the stick - here it's Julio (Diego Luna), Max's fellow petty criminal pal. However, at least the Ally of Convenience, a gangster named Spider (Wagner Moura from the "Elite Squad" movies), who runs all the illegal flights to Elysium, is around long enough to be a real character.

"Elysium" is clearly a much lighter and more commercial film, but not everyone seems clear on to what degree. So you have Jodie Foster playing a wildly over-the-top villain whose performance is noticeably too cartoony for the film's more serious tone. And then there's Sharlto Copley's Kruger, who doesn't really work at all, because his menace keeps being undercut by barely intelligible rambling that may have been meant to be comedic. Possibly. And you have the same kind of gory, visceral violence from "District 9," where you see a lot of the carnage up close. However, the story is told in very broad strokes, including scenes of uncomfortably on-the-nose moralizing that seem like they should be in a movie for a much younger crowd. The social commentary on the state of healthcare and the divisions between rich are poor are not handled very well, the fantasy filter far too slight, and the workings of the world of "Elysium" too underdeveloped.

Oh sure, the film has great visuals. With the benefit of a Hollywood budget, Blomkamp does a fantastic job bringing visions of decaying urban cities policed by robots and space station paradises to life. I love the way that he delineates the different kinds of technology used on Earth versus in Elysium, and the different languages, and all the weaponry and vehicles. As an action film "Elysium" does its job, providing a fair amount of fights and chases and demonstrations of how to fell a flying Roomba. However, the movie clearly wants to be more than that, and comes up empty at every turn. There are too many unanswered questions about the world, like why Elysium won't share its technology, and what the terms of its coexistence with Earth are. Surely Elysium is still dependent on Earth for resources to some extent, right?

However, I keep coming back to the basic storytelling as the fundamental problem. It's a major disappointment that after a hero as complicated and memorable as Wikus Van de Merwe from "District 9," Matt Damon is stuck playing someone as trite and bland as Max Da Costa. It's to Damon's credit that Max comes off as well as he does. The metaphor of rich and poor being physically isolated from each other is a perfectly fine one, but there's no bite it the way it's presented, no sign of the fiendishly clever scripting that let Blomkamp address lots of different facets of problematic race relationships his last time out. Instead, it too often feels like the director was being distracted by shiny sets and fancy effects. He clearly had a lot of new ideas he wanted to try out, but there aren't many that worked as intended.

I hate to say it, but this sophomore slump may be indicative of a one-hit wonder. And that's an awful shame.
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