Cult-Movie Review: Elysium (2013)

Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 sits perched on my top ten “best” list of science fiction movies made since the year 2000, and was also selected by readers of this blog as the number one best SF film made during that span. 

Accordingly, great anticipation met the talented director’s follow-up genre film, last summer’s Elysium (2013).

Although set in the distant year 2151 AD Elysium is very much a film about today, about right now.

In fact, the film gazes squarely at today’s pressing problems -- income inequality, immigration, and global warming -- and spins them into a future world wherein each crisis has grown much, much worse.   

In a split or dual society that recalls Metropolis (1927), and “The Cloud Minders” episode of Star Trek (1966 – 1969) to name just two genre antecedents, Elysium colorfully depicts a world of the haves and the have-nots, the affluent few and the teeming masses. 

The former camp (the haves) live in luxury on a space station that resembles one of our wealthiest contemporary gated communities.  Meanwhile, the latter (the have-nots) live in poverty and smog on Earth, in overpopulated cities. The former have universal healthcare. The latter are but cannon fodder working on dangerous assembly lines and policed by gestapo-like robots.

Although many critics complained that Elysium is too left-wing in its social critique of the 99% versus the 1%, I actually found that the film could have done with much more red meat…of any political stripe, actually. 

For although Elysium very quickly pinpoints amusing and clever “futuristic” metaphors for border crossings, and worker abuse by the CEO class -- and even culminates with health-care available to everyone on the planet --about half way through the action, the film just runs out of ideas and starts substituting graphic violence for plot and character development.

Leading up to the climax, in fact, Elysium becomes all about Matt Damon in a power suit fighting a psychopath, played by Shalton Copley -- also in a power suit -- as a countdown clock ticks down to disaster. 

In other words, there’s nothing in the denouement that you haven’t seen in a gazillion other blockbuster Hollywood movies.

To better describe Elysium’s failing in historical genre terms, there is actually much less social critique to consider and analyze in Elysium (2013) than there was, by contrast, in Verhoeven’s RoboCop (1987), a satire which studied the mad privatization rush of the eighties, and lampooned it mercilessly.

Because of its very funny digs at CEOs and big business, RoboCop remains a pretty sharp, biting film, even today, whereas Elysium’s generic last half-hour leaves the effort feeling old, flat, and out-of-ideas. 

While the film’s visuals are undeniably gorgeous and deeply affecting, they are  simply not enough to carry the weight of a largely empty vessel.  By Elysium’s third act, the story just grinds away on auto-pilot, dominated by action genre clichés, and there’s nothing very compelling or human to hold onto.

The world of the Have-Nots.

The world of Haves.

“I can finally buy my ticket to Elysium.”

Elysium is the story of Max Da Costa (Damon), an ex-con who works in Los Angeles at CEO John Carlyle’s (William Fichtner’s) Armadyne Corporation, a firm that supplies equipment (mainly weapons) to the orbiting home of the affluent 1%: Elysium.

Carlyle operates and administers all the computer software on Elysium as well, and has been instructed by its surly Secretary of Defense, Delacourt (Jodie Foster), to re-boot the system and give Elysium a new president.

Delacourt disapproves of the current president, Patel (Faran Tahir) because he has shown disdain for her draconian predilection for shooting down “immigrant” ships from Earth. He would like to see more tact and humanity in the station’s defense.

When Max is badly injured in a workplace accident at Armadyne and Carlyle evidences more concern for the bed linens than a human life, Max realizes he must take responsibility for his own survival  He must get to Elysium and use one of its miraculous med-bays if he hopes to survive the lethal dose of radiation.

Max visits a former friend in the L.A. underworld, and is up-fitted with an exo-skeleton that transforms him into a fearsome soldier. Max is then sent on a mission by the underground’s leader, Spider (Wagner Moura) to intercept Carlyle on his voyage to Elysium, and download the system information he keeps locked in his head.

When the mission goes bloodily wrong, Delacourt activates an agent on Earth, the psychotic Kruger (Copley) to protect Carlyle and destroy everyone attempting to steal the information that could point to her involvement in a coup. 

After Carlyle is killed, Max is forced to go on the run, and he seeks refuge at the house of his childhood friend, Frey (Alice Braga)  He learns that her daughter, Matilda, is dying of cancer.

Like Max, one trip to Elysium could cure the sick little girl…

“That place is not for you or me.”

There’s no denying that there are many inventive and artistic touches incorporated throughout Elysium.  The very name of paradise, for instance, recalls the realm of the after-life from Greek myth. 

In Ancient Greek stories, Elysium (or “the fortunate island”) was a place reserved for “blessed” Gods, demi-Gods, and heroes. Homer termed it a place where there was never, even, any bad weather. 

The film version of Elysium fits the bill perfectly with its lush green lawns, pristine beaches, and opulent McMansions. It’s a fortunate island, indeed, especially compared to poverty-stricken Earth. 

But importantly, the very term “Elysium” sounds a lot like it could belong to one of today’s exclusive gated communities (think of “The Falls at Arcadia” in The X-Files, for instance.)  I guess what I’m saying is that as the name of a rich community, Elysium sounds just right.  It is strange, intellectual, and self-aggrandizing enough to be the (pretentious…) name of a home-base for all the “right” kind of people.

Elysium is also compelling when it meticulously diagrams futuristic border crossings. Here, “illegal immigrants” board rickety shuttles bound for space, so the border they cross is Earth’s very orbit.  Elysium’s defense department employees refer to the unwanted visitors as “undocumented” individuals and again, that’s a polite euphemism for saying “the wrong kind of people,” right?

Much is made in the film, as well, of the fact that the undocumented of Earth are not given access to the material and medical wealth of Elysium because, specifically, they lack citizenship to this fortunate island in space.  Without the path to citizenship, they will always be second class…

The film’s view of unregulated, out-of-control business is also commendable.  In this future, the workers have no rights, and are subject to unsafe and hazardous working conditions.  The businessmen who run the factories have no reason to change their ways, either.  With no labor unions or regulations to protect them, the workers can’t really complain or find safer work.  And with ten workers lining up for every available job, they are easily replaced too.  In this future, workers are cogs in a wheel, and sometimes just spare parts.

The film’s villain, Carlyle, also seems to be named after “The Carlyle Group” the famous -- infamous? -- global asset management firm.

Outside these specific details, what Elysium mainly concerns itself with is an unjust world in which the few control all the assets, and the many suffer for that control.  In this case the rich few even possess  miraculous technology to increase their longevity, while the poor must suffer in squalor and die from the same (preventable/curable) medical conditions.

There’s no doubt that there is inequality in our world today, and that money is being concentrated in the hands of the super-wealthy, at the expense of the rest of the human race, so I’m all on board with Elysium’s speculation about what the world will look like if this trend continues, and the middle class is completely destroyed.  Amen.

And again, I don’t actually see any of this speculation as particularly left-wing.  It’s a common-sense critique.  Conservative and liberals alike are getting squeezed out of the American dream by tough times.  I suppose the film is purportedly “liberal” in these contentious times because it suggests that it’s very difficult to pursue life, liberty and happiness when you or your loved ones are sick, and medical care is prohibitively expensive…or reserved for the upper class. 

Again, that just seems like common sense to me, though I know many people would disagree.

But no matter your politics, ask yourself what you would do if your son or daughter were terminally ill, and some rich folks had the cure, but weren’t willing to share it because you’re just not the right sort of person.

That’s a human dilemma that very much crosses political lines, and Elysium suggests that it is unjust and immoral to withhold medical care from people simply because of money, or in fact, citizenship.

But as much as I can buy into Elysium’s viewpoint,  in the final analysis the film just can’t really make the claim to discuss many of these issues meaningfully.  They are all there as backdrop, certainly.  But the narrative just descends totally into cartoonish and over-the-top violence.

And misguided violence too. 

At one point mid-way through the action, for instance, Elysium’s ostensible villain, Delacourt, is killed by Kruger.  This is a terrible misstep in terms of the film’s theme. She is the established voice of the self-righteous, entitled, restrictive Elysium “paradigm” and losing her before the climax means that the film also loses its way, and its opposing point of view. 

The final battle here should plainly be between Delacourte’s philosophy of life that wealth is for one kind of “right” person, and Max’s slow dawning philosophy of -- shall we say -- health care for all.  The verisimilitude of the Elysium civilization is shattered once you realize that the film is never, beyond Delacourt, going to examine the ethos by which those on Elysium actually live. 

Elysium is thus a…straw society, and extremely easy to knock down.

How do the Elysians justify their lifestyle?  How do they justify denying health care to millions of human beings?

Even here, today, on Earth, we have voices on all sides of such issues, making arguments about what to do and how to help people.  The movie doesn’t give voice to any people on Elysium, and that’s why I assert that the social critique is mostly backdrop.

But the film kills off Delacourt, and with her goes all further commentary about the differences between the world below and the world above.  Instead, Copley -- a talented actor -- goes big and bold, and he plays as Kruger a stereotypical comic-book villain, a psychopath with no real philosophy about anything. 

With him as the film’s bad guy, Elysium loses sight of its through-line about social injustice.

Elysium is also filled with strange little incongruities.  Elysium possesses  medical technology that is not just amazing, but downright miraculous, for instance. But we know from our own history that our many medical advances are erected on previous ones.  It seems illogical, therefore, that Elysium should be so far advanced ahead of Earth, and that none of that technology is known or exists anywhere on the planet. 

I guess everything on Elysium is patented by Carlyle, but wouldn’t the people on Earth represent his biggest customer base ever?  Wouldn’t some of that medicine be exported to the poor, at appropriately exorbitant prices, of course?

Secondly, Delacourt desires a coup by computer.  So on Elysium, presidents are selected by the computer system, not by the people? 

That idea just doesn’t ring true to me, either.  If we knew more about the people residing on that fortunate island, maybe this plot-line would seem more logical.  But I find it highly unlikely that the super-rich – having set themselves up permanently on beachfront orbital property (!) -- would turn total control of their lives over to a computer that could be hacked…especially if the same people are so worried about the wrong kind of people getting in.

Elysium’s never heard of cyber-warfare?

Elysium is a dystopian film, and in the final analysis, the exuberantly happy ending -- featuring ambulances delivering medical care to all the sick of the world -- seems fairly bogus.  These ambulances don’t have drivers who could refuse the order to go to Earth?  Or computers that could be re-programmed not to launch in the event of a security breach?

The more you think about Elysium, the less well-thought out the whole affair seems, and that’s a pretty damning indictment considering the quality and reputation of District 9.

Although I wouldn’t exactly call the film a sophomore slump, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium knows precisely what it wants to say, but somehow still can’t manage to say it in an effective and entertaining way.