It’s the year 2154 and Earth is no longer the only planet that humans call home.
The summer blockbuster, Elysium, tells the story of a futuristic world in which the wealthy people live on a man-made space station and the rest of society dwells on Earth.
I enjoyed Elysium because it was a great action flick full of pretty cool fight scenes.
I also really enjoyed the concept of the film. I was still thinking about the movie after the day that I had seen it.
When movies keep me thinking even after I have left the theatre, that’s impressive.. Elysium is one of those movies that make you think about society and the different directions it may be heading in the near future.
Matt Damon plays Max, a character who dreamed of buying himself and his lady friend a ticket up to Elysium ever since he was a child. As he became a young man he started stealing cars and committing other crimes in order to raise money for the tickets.
Damon played a believable “rough around the edges” sort of guy who was only out for himself in the beginning but eventually had a change of heart.
Jodie Foster played Delacourt, Elysium’s Secretary of Defense. Her character was ruthless and emotionless to the point of being robotic herself.
The plot unfolds as Max is going to work but gets stopped by robot cops, who make him report to his robot parole officer.
The concept of robot government officials was really interesting. I liked how the director and writer, Neil Blomkamp, incorporated this scene into the film. It makes the viewer think about the future of our society and its relationship with technology.
The mayhem begins after Max arrives at the robot factory that he works at. He is exposed to radiation and is told that he will die in five days.
The only chance Max believes he has to survive involves traveling up to Elysium where he can be cured by a machine.
Every family has one of these “curing” machines in their home. To the wealthy, the machine is just another household appliance such as a dishwasher.
These kind of machines are not available on Earth.
Max is desperate to buy a ticket up to Elysium and this leads to all kinds of trouble.
The plot was not Oscar worthy, but that was not the point. With this film, Blomkamp aimed to shed light on some of the things that our society might be doing wrong.
Blomkamp was definitely pointing some fingers at class systems and dehumanization. Humanity and what it means to be a human were definitely major themes of the movie.
I recommend this film to anyone looking for a good action movie that dares to dig a little below the surface that most action movies tend to cling on.