Matt Damon (Kimberley French/Columbia TriStar)In the year 2154, Los Angeles is a third world country. There are no tripods. Filmmakers direct shootouts in almost incomprehensible setups, barring the occasional slow-motion sequence depicting a particularly brutal human explosion. The privileged among humans are fortunate to live on the space station Elysium, where the wealthy citizens speak French and Secretary of Defense Delacourt (Jodie Foster) speaks English in an incongruous accent apparently borrowed from director Neill Blomkamp’s South African homeland.
In the year 2154, Delcaourt hires scruffy rogue agent Kruger (Sharlto Copley, familiar from Blomkamp’s overrated District 9) a ferocious man desperately in need of subtitles. Kruger’s steampunk shabby-chic wardrobe, like many of the criminal sort in the Los Angeles of the future, recalls 1981’s The Road Warrior, a vision of dystopia that may have looked threatening thirty years ago but which looks dated now. But in the year 1981, director George Miller fueled The Road Warrior‘s post-apocalyptic gasoline crisis with thrillingly choreographed action scenes structured so that you had a good sense of the solid ground upon which combatants inflicted mighty chaos upon each other.
In the year 2013, the contemporary big-budget action movie builds sloppily to its CGi climax upon fight scenes marred by rapid cuts and shaky camerawork. I recently revisited a vintage episode of Fantasy Island, co-starring Leslie Nielsen as a beret-wearing French fighter named Emile. The episode, which also featured former Playmate Barbi Benton in a chicken suit, the two-piece, form-fitting MacGuffin of a plot that somehow turned the tables on female objectification, demonstrated that Aaron Spelling and his charges were better equipped to put together a coherent shootout than most of today’s action movie directors (the major exception: Johnnie To’s Drug War — somebody bring this mother to D.C., okay?)
Jodie Foster and Matt Damon flank an uncredited Asian (Kimberley French/Columbia TriStar)In the year 2154, privileged Elysians benefit from home medical devices which cure all bodily failures and diseases known to man. These devices are only available to those which are recognized as citizens of Elysium, but humble Earthlings (at least, Los Angelenos, who seem to be the only ones left; who knew?) save up for a clandestine ticket to Elysium for a chance to heal their children, because they are the ones who carry disease.
In the year 2154, Max (Matt Damon) is a humble Los Angeleno with a purpose in life, as he was told by a kindly nun when he was a young lad. Max finds his purpose after lax workplace compensation laws leave him with a dose of radiation that will kill him in five days, just long enough to set a plan into motion. Max, with his childlike dreams, plots to make for Elysium’s healing medical devices. Unbeknownst to Max and his scruffy team, their plot coincides with Delacourt’s Evil Plan to reboot Elysium and install her own President through a computer program carried in the brain of John Carlyle (the reliable slime William Fichtner).
In the year 2154, when you run a computer program, the entire code, in bold 1980s computer display fonts, flashes before you on a screen, and although the powers that be can trace every step of John Carlyle’s journey, somehow they lose track of Max, thanks to an elderly nun and a pigpen.
In the year 2013, the dystopian ideas of Elysium aren’t far fetched. The viewer sees for whom to root for whom to wish they meet an explosive fate in mid-air. In the year 2013, I want to care about what happens in the year 2154, but the script’s flaws, the film’s murky look, the incoherent fight scenes (all typical action movie problems) and Jodie Foster’s incongruous accent (a new one!) make it difficult to care.
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Elysium
Written and directed by Neill Blomkamp
With Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, William Fichtner
Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout
Running time 109 minutes
Opens today at a multiplex near you
