“Elysium” would be just another summer blockbuster, if not for the fact that its director, Neill Blomkamp, was also responsible for a very different film: “District 9”. Sure, both films feature near-future dystopias, complete with gritty violence. But “Elysium” is missing much of what made “District 9” such an effective piece of science-fiction.
It was, I admit, a little surprising.Even The New Yorker’s reviewer seemed ebullient, calling the film “something angry and alive” amongst this summer’s other blockbusters. “Elysium” was made with a budget almost three times larger than “District 9”: on the face of things, surely we should expect a much bigger film? Yet somehow, “Elysium” feels a great deal smaller in ambition.
Things start to make sense once you realise the kind of film Blomkamp was setting out to make. Tellingly, in an interview with Boing Boing reporter Colin Berry, Blomkamp revealed that:
“My whole goal was big-scale cinema and archetypal storytelling. It will probably be the most expensive film I’ll ever make… But to have a bunch of low-budget, super edgy films and not have something cinematic? I wouldn’t be happy not to have that in my body of work. Elysium really is the film I wanted to make.”
Spoilers Begin Here
The real issue is that what passes for “cinematic” today is mostly flash, not substance; with good-looking CG and action often used to paper over other shortcomings.
For instance: it seems that the plot of a blockbuster doesn’t always need to make perfect sense. At the start of the film, we see gang-leader Spider sending rogue shuttles up to ElysiumThe eponymous space-station that serves as a luxurious paradise for the very rich, with universal healthcare for all.. These people are risking a lotJust a single shuttle makes it, and the hundreds of people in the other shuttles perish when they’re hit by missiles., but when they get there, they don’t seem to have any kind of plan for dealing with Elysium’s security forces. Just one mother has the right idea: she manages to get access to a med-bay to heal her daughter, before both are deported. For the rest, it just seems like a bizarre suicide mission.
But a more egregious breach happens at the end of the film: hundreds of medical ships pour out of Elysium, going down to fix things up on the previously-neglected Earth. It’s definitely a feel-good moment, but as you start to think about it, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense. Why would Elysium have all those ships just standing idly by? After all, every home on Elysium already has a med-bay.
Plot shortcomings could be dismissed, if “Elysium” was filled with characters we cared about. But with paper-thin heroes and villains, it’s hard to engage with what we’re seeing. The relationship between protagonists Max and Frey largely rests on a few frames of flashback to their childhood in an orphanage. Playing a power-hungry defence minister, Jodie Foster is largely wasted: her motivations beyond simply wanting to seize control are never explored. And Sharlto Copley, who played the fascinatingly ambiguous Wikus van de Merwe in “District 9”, is reduced here to the one-dimensionally aggressive Kruger.
It’s a real shame, then, that “Elysium” doesn’t live up to its potential. Blomkamp’s next film is set to come out in 2015 : entitled “Chappie”, it’s about an AI robot who’s stolen by gangsters. An intriguing premise, to be sure, but everything depends on whether Blomkamp decides to return to the engaging characters and strong storytelling that made “District 9” such an effective film.
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