Movie Review: Elysium

A STUNNING sci-fi action film, Elysium brings a crashing hammer down on the US summer blockbuster season.

Matt Damon, Elysium.

A stunning sci-fi action film, Elysium brings a crashing hammer down on the US summer blockbuster season. Though not without its share of flaws, it is clearly the best big-ticket picture of 2013 so far.

South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp proves his sensational 2009 debut District 9 was no fluke. The man has a vision, and that vision has real impact. Just be aware that Elysium is a movie with a lot of explaining to do. You better listen hard during the opening act, or you could well find yourself lost for the rest of the picture. The year is 2154. As far as futures go, there is nothing to look forward to for the good people of Earth. The planet is now one bad, dirty, overcrowded slum. It is no fit place to live. The have-nots parted company with the haves decades ago. The rich and privileged live in airborne utopias such as Elysium, gated communities that float elegantly in the sky. Elysium is only a 20-minute shuttle ride from here, but it might well as be in another universe. Non-residents that dare try to fly up there face a 95 per cent chance of being shot down en route. An ex-con named Max (Matt Damon) needs to travel to Elysium as a matter of urgency. A radiation incident at his factory has left him with just days to live. Every home on Elysium has a therapeutic pod that can cure every medical affliction known to man. Max needs some time with that machine, or his time is up. The getting to Elysium gets more complicated by the minute for Max. Especially once he brokers a deal with his unfriendly neighbourhood people-smuggler for a one-way ticket skywards. Not only must a shuttle must be hijacked by Max, whose broken body is held together by a military exoskeleton. Max also has to steal the top-secret thoughts of a leading Elysium citizen aboard that craft. In this version of the future, brainwaves can be digitally encrypted, and transferred from one mind to another. See? I told you this movie was complicated. The inspired scripting and direction of Blomkamp have been slightly compromised by the need to service the action component of his movie. Thankfully, these adrenalised sequences are rough, tough and ready enough to provoke real excitement and involvement for viewers. It also helps that an actor of the calibre of Damon is present to make the minor details matter as much as the major concepts. The two villains of Elysium - Jodie Foster as an affluent powerbroker, and Sharlto Copley as her vicious henchman - do stray to the corny side on occasion. But these erratic displays (along with a few plotting paradoxes) are merely momentary lapses. When Blomkamp's film really lets fly with its anguished take on where our world is heading - access to health care and the degradation of the environment are his chief concerns - Elysium scales heights few productions this year will reach. Director: Neill Blomkamp (District 9) Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga Rise to the occasion, or die trying ###