Elysium: A film caught in two minds

Neill Blomkamp is a director on a mission. Fresh with working with Peter Jackson (of The Lord of the Rings fame) on the politically charged District 9, he's this time attempting to combine big ideas with a big budget in blockbuster science fiction romp Elysium. But has he succeeded in creating a film that spreads grand messages on hope, poverty and the widening difference between the extremities of wealth while at the same time keeping an audience entertained? Not quite. 

Elysium tells the story of earth more than a hundred years from now, where the population has grown and resources have dwindled to such an extent that society's most fortunate have abandoned the planet in favour of an artificial utopia aboard a self sufficient space station known as Elysium, which is dominated by iron-fisted defence secretary Delacourt (Jodi Foster) . Back on earth, Max (Matt Damon), is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation and embarks on a quest to reach Elysium and it's advanced health technology in order to save his life. It's a grand premise with seemingly endless potential to explore a range of controversial social issues; dictatorship; bureaucracy and the use of military force to name but a few. And while the script does attempt to at least touch on these, during the second half of the film it becomes more concerned with another aspect: action. 

And it is here that Elysium's problems begin, because Blomkamp's film becomes caught in two minds. On the one hand, it wants a movie that explores a myriad of social and political problems, a film with a message. And on the other, it wants use the power of special effects granted by it's large budget to their full potential to entertain. While the film might have created a fine balance between these contrasting techniques, it instead opts to concentrate it's efforts on the exploding space ships, shoot outs and battles with robotic droids. All very well, you might think, but this leaves the film's attempts at creating an intelligent work as something as an afterthought, a shame considering that the picture was billed as a more clever piece of science fiction. 

At least the action makes Elysium tolerably entertaining, but this isn't what we'd hoped for from the director of the supremely intelligent District 9. To make matters worse, there are few stand-out performances from the all star cast, with only Wagner Moura's madcap character Spider being particularly impressive. And this all comes down to making Elysium an unmemorable and rather disappointing movie from an aspiring young director.  

5/10