Hmmm, let’s see, how do I stay on topic here and still write this post? “Some of the victims of violence easily looked like ground beef…..” “Matt Damon plays a real hot dog hero in this one, with…”
No matter.
I went to this hoping for half the movie that writer/director Neill Blomkamp gave us with his “District 9” several years ago. The South African born/raised former visual effects artist takes his image imagination and successfully turns it into interesting, never-been-told tales.
In this outing, Earth’s population of the future is divided into two camps – the wealthy, who have unlimited state of the art health care, and live in an Eden-like space colony, and everybody else, dying in poverty and squalor on shabby old earth. Hmm, that sounds more like a realty show!
Damon’s character dreamed as a child of going to the space outpost, Elysium, and an industrial work accident made it mission critical for him – unless the got to the station within five days, crawled into one of their “cure-all machines”, he would be toast.
His mission complicated by the appearance of a former love interest, whose only child is dying from leukemia, Damon hooks up with a former criminal co-hort, offers to perform “any task” in return for two tickets to paradise.
The film offers non-stop action, stunning effects and visualizations of the future colony, with a dose of reality thrown in as future Los Angeles is portrayed by present day Mexico City. The always lovely and talented Jody Foster turns in a great performance as a government official on the space outpost.
I liked it. For a couple of reasons. I like almost any movie that’s not a remake or sequel, and they are hard to find these days; and I like Blomkamp’s allegories (in my opinion) of life in South Africa pre and post apartheid, having visited in both periods. The slums of (future) Los Angeles bear a striking resemblance to the townships of Joburg.
Here’s the official trailer. Catch the flick in IMAX if you are able.
Movie reviews