Science fiction has long been a platform for storytellers to address the problems of today in the world of tomorrow. Social justice, poverty, disease, ethics, and all manner of contemporary issues have been staples of science fiction films for decades. Take Planet of the Apes, for example. On the surface, a concept deeply rooted in silliness elevated by sub-textual analysis of the civil rights era. Class and race politics are no stranger to the genre, and Neill Blomkamp knows this.
His debut feature, District 9, introduced him to the world as a force to be reckoned with, crafted a rich and thrilling sci-fi film about apartheid and race politics in South Africa framed within a story about aliens landing on earth. Only costing $30 million to make and with no notable stars, the film went on to be one of the most unlikely success stories in recent years, becoming a huge critical and commercial hit, and even going on to net Oscar nominations for Editing, Visual Effects, Screenplay, and Best Picture.
Four years later, and Blomkamp finds himself armed with a larger budget and star power brought on by Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. But with great budget comes great responsibility, and unfortunately the whole enterprise kind of gets away from the South African filmmaker from the get-go. We’re introduced to an over-populated and horrendously polluted earth packed to the brim with garbage and slums, with the halo-like image of the space station habitat Elysium hovering over the planet like an island in the middle of an endless ocean. Built as a safe haven for the 1% to preserve their opulent way of life, it’s a paradise where the rich stay rich, disease-free, and safely away from the rest of humanity.
It’s a promising and fascinating concept that could serve as a rich jumping off point for the film to discuss the need for universal health care and the ever-expanding chasm of wealth distribution. We’re introduced to Max, a released convict on parole who only stole out of necessity, who now finds himself dying of radiation poisoning after an accident at his job, and who could serve as a tragic hero and dramatic entry point for the debate at hand. Elysium is filled with a lot of things it could do, but never does. Instead, it opts to be a generic action film in a sci-fi setting filled to the brim with clichés and bland storytelling.
Whereas District 9 always felt like it was going against the grain, doing things you’d never expect, taking dramatic turns in directions one didn’t see coming, Elysium is so drastically paint-by-the-numbers predictable that it’s a bit shocking that the same person wrote both. We have the stoic hero trying to live a normal life, destined for greatness, reunited with his childhood sweetheart through a series of unfortunate circumstances.
He’s given a device to help him pull off one last job for his eccentric former crime boss, but naturally, everything goes wrong and mayhem ensues for the duration of the film. There’s even an attempted military coup on Elysium that, once introduced, is never once explained or touched on again.
The screenplay introduces a lot of false starts for conflicts that never come to fruition, instead just devolving into a rather standard action film with endless chase scenes and gory shootouts that never amount to much, dramatically. Matt Damon is charismatic as always, but that only takes him so far with such limited material to work with. Sharlto Copley, the tragic hero at the center of Blomkamp’s previous film, completely switches gears here to turn in a gleefully over-the-top performance as the film’s completely unhinged mercenary villain. Generally, the cast all does well under Blomkamp’s direction, if getting into silly histrionics from time to time.
If there’s one performance that can epitomize everything wrong with the film, it’s Jodie Foster as Secretary Delacourt. A completely wasted character with no real motivation beyond just being a wealthy militaristic, she has an accent that Foster can never nail down or keep consistent, ranging from French to West Virginian, and every line feels stilted in an odd stop-start speech pattern that may have Foster delivering one of the worst performances of her career.
It’s a bizarre turn that effectively mirrors the inconsistent quality of the film. Blomkamp appears to have gotten so caught up in building this world that he forgot to really explore it with any depth. We’re never really given any explanation for what’s happening outside of the logline and a flashback that’s repeated three times, and verbatim, just to make sure we didn’t forget that Max is destined for greatness. It’s frustratingly lazy storytelling where the potential for something far more interesting exists in literally every frame of the film. Instead, the film winds up being a well meaning yet painfully dull action film that looks great but doesn’t have much on its mind.
