Elysium **, or thereabouts (R) This commentary comes with a disclaimer - it’s my only published review of a movie in which I dozed off. I wasn’t particularly tired. Everything but the estimated 10 minutes I missed in the early going convinces me my brief nap was due more to the film than fatigue. With that confession in mind, we proceed.
Sci-fi flicks routinely trade heavily on projections of our present problems into dystopian futures. Ecological disasters have fueled all sorts of fare from the Mad Max action flicks to the kid-friendly likes of Wall.E. This one shows us a version of 2154 in which Earth has been decimated by overuse, yet still houses billions of impoverished residents. All the rich folk are blissfully orbiting 20 minutes above the surface in an idyllic eponymous satellite - the ultimate gated community. They have a hard-core defense against unwanted immigrants from below, headed by an oddly cast and drawn security chief, Jodie Foster, with one of several inexplicable accents among the company. They also have machines that cure any illness or injury up there, while the masses have to get by on less than Oliver Twist.
Matt Damon is an ex-con working in a factory. He’s exposed to a dose of radiation that will kill him in five days unless he can sneak into Elysium long enough for a cure. His Earth masters don’t care enough to offer more than pills to ease the pain. OSHA and workers compensation laws appear to have vanished long before this tale unfolds.
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I would have relished the movie’s political perspective on several hot-button topics, but its potential as a humorless satire was buried beneath the tedium of a plodding action flick, joining the mediocre blur of many recent offerings like Pacific Rim or After Earth. Damon finds an old girlfriend who helps him, while also trying to get her daughter up to Elysium before she succumbs to leukemia. The rest is all f/x, with too much bad acting, stale dialog and pacing that makes it seem longer than its running time (probably worse without the nap).
Spoiler Alert: Besides its dismal view of our future as to wealth inequality, extreme border-control measures, appalling labor conditions and earth’s viability, the film presents an even more depressing outlook for what it will take to get Universal Healthcare past the One-percenters. (8/9/13)