Elysium

I went to see the mega-production of the month, Elysium, and was astonished as to what I witnessed.  I fully expected a fast paced action/adventure/sci-fi thrill ride, one which never lets go, since Elysium barely surpassed the 100 minute mark; a rather short length film for today's standards.  What was delivered was everything short of expected, and left me scratching my head and rubbing my eyes not only in disbelief but also frustration.


 The newest film from writer/director Neill Blomkamp, writer/director of District 9, seemed to have more holes than the Swiss, keeping this story from ever taking off.

Someone order a flimsy script?

For starters, the story seemed to have numerous plot points coming from left field.  An elite group of humans living on a space station where the air is clear and crazy medical beds heal and instantly eradicate any and all ailments, this utopia floats in space a mere 19 minute flight from Los Angeles. All the while, the Earth's surface is left littered with trash and destitute individuals all trying to find their way aboard Space Station Elysium.  

 Los Angeles 2154, or 2013?  I can't tell the difference.

 Elysium, snobby mc'snobsville, with their stupid trees and faces.

This made up the semi-understandable story.  The tippy top elite members of society, along with government officials, wanting to isolate themselves from the working class filth...that's not so far from reality.  The problem was that the motivation for total isolation seemed unsupported.  Elysium had these medical beds right?, while down on Earth, society was barely functioning with illness and injury.  Why not supply medical beds on Earth?  Elysium was created to facilitate its citizens living away from famine, disease, danger, etc.  Yet, Elysium also required assistance from the Earth's surface in the manufacturing of robots: medical robots, police robots, etc.  It would seem advantageous for Elysium to supply these miracle medical beds for the Earth's residents as well.  Also, if the human race had the knowledge and capability to create an isolated space station, and have robots to do the "heavy-lifting" and have magical beds to heal any and all problems, how were they unable to reverse the Earth's decline into chaos?  

Now, throughout this film we follow Max, played by Matt Damon, a former criminal turned honest working stiff.  Max lives in Los Angeles and, along with everybody, is trying to end up on Elysium.  Max works at this plant where the police robots are made, and one day accidentally gets exposed to a lethal dose of radiation.  Let me stop things here. 

 Do not pass go, do not collect radiation poisoning.

In a previous scene, we see Max going through his normal work routine.  He makes and installs some metal pieces for the bots, then pushes a pallet of them into a sealed off room, almost like a kiln.  We see and hear him pushing buttons in sequence while shouting out phrases: "Closing 34!" "Firing 34!" (something along those lines)  We clearly see him do a multi-step process in which the robots get subjected to radiation, for one reason or another.  Flash forward a day.  Max finds himself getting trapped inside this kiln, while trying to clear a jammed door.  Why wasn't there any override switch to open the door once the jam occurred?  Not only does the door continue to close, and no one is outside the room to support him in his efforts to clear this jam, even though his supervisor directed him to enter the room, but then the radiation kicks on.  Wait a second I said to myself, didn't we see Max hit two different buttons, one to close the door the other to set off the radiation?  Yes.  So then why when Max is trapped inside this room did the radiation start up on its own?  Then there is the fact about the alarms which started up.  Max's control board flashes a warning along with a siren: Organic Flesh Detected.  If there is a warning siren and message built into this system with the only goal of alerting the operators to the unpleasant issue of Organic Flesh inside the radiation chamber, then why wasn't there a built in shut off when this rare occurrence occurs?  Am I going mad?  

 Hey Neill, this doesn't work for me.

Now, after all this hullabaloo happens, we find Max, somehow alive in a isolated medical bay.  He is informed, by robot, that he has been subject to a lethal amount of radiation, and that his organs would be deteriorating over the next 5 days until his death.  What the heck is going on?  If Max received that much radiation to kill him in 5 days, how did he survive in the first place?  Seems to me that Max should have been dead within the first 20 minutes of the film, not capable of walking out and posing a threat to Elysium.  Instead Max finds himself amongst "gangsters" and no one seems too worried about this lethally radiated man within their personal space.  I don't know here people, seems way bizarre.

Honestly, at this point in the film, I was pretty annoyed.  I kept thinking to myself during the remaining hour plus, "Am I bored?", "Yes, I am bored.  This is boring."  It never got better either.  That above rant was honestly only 15-20 minutes of the film, yet it started the snowball of absurdity which filled up the remainder of the time.  Honestly, for a film only 100 minutes and some change, the story dragged so much, it felt like a 3 hour endeavor.  Part of the issue I feel must be attributed to the fact we got a writer/director issue.  As I discussed in The To Do List review, we potentially run into an almost "conflict of interest" when one individual occupies two creatively important roles; bad form.  I promise you I will not go into any more plot issues, because I don't want this review to end up the length of War and Peace.  Let me just assure you, this film is flimsy flimsy flimsy.  

Now, as you first saw when you entered into this posts realm, there was indeed a popcorn, not a trio of Z's.  I really must commend this film on a handful of things, which slightly earned this film a tiny bit of love and redemption from me.  For one, the acting in this film was rather good, surprisingly.   Even while the story dragged along like a zombie at midnight, the acting was sharp and to the point.  One truly felt the emotion conveyed on screen, just not the reason behind it.  The cast had some big names to support Matt Damon: Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copley, to name a couple.  With these names come a certain level of talent even a bad script cannot decline.

Another aspect one can count on from Blomkamp, was the hyper realistic visuals and special effects.  We the viewer got quite an eyeful of some rather gruesome fight sustained damage and medical procedures.  Enough to make even the tough guys in the room squirm.  One can only look at a half exploded face, or disturbing exo-skeletal surgery for so long, you know?

Hold still Mr. Damon, you may feel a slight pinch.

Final Words: Small Popcorn 
All in all folks, this film was un-good.  As with my English in the last sentence, this film lacked reason and story, providing instead ammunition for question marks.  Some may find elements entertaining and worth while, but mostly finding themselves just as bored and confused as I was.  The small popcorn is specifically for the few aspects I mentioned above, and nothing else.  If you find yourself with a hankering to watch this film, do so in the most inexpensive way possible.

Until next time, happy viewing!

Review Rating based on popcorn sizes: small, medium, large, extra-large; 

films worth skipping get snore...zzzzz