War of Unequals

Cast: Matt Damon,Jodie Foster,Sharlto Copley

**

Blomkamp has called this a satire on everything,from the debate on anti-immigration laws,to the Los Angeles work force comprising mostly illegal Mexicans,to the fact that the rich who have made a new space house for themselves may well be as distant currently.

From the director of the unexpectedly good District 9,Elysium even passes off for all that in the beginning. However,Jodie Foster then steps in as this blonde secretary of state to this Black-ish president,starts alternating between French in a very Christine Lagarde manner and politician-bashing in a very,very crowd-pleasing way,and you can’t help chuckling at the confused politics of this film.

However,it’s not just that the dialogues leave you cringing. Even the alien world that Blomkamp built up nicely in District 9 looks so been-there-done-that here. The central premise is that in the year 2154,the rich have moved to heavenly existence in an impractically shaped space station called Elysium,leaving the Earthlings to death,despair,disease,deprivation,and layers and layers of dust. Max (Damon),a former patrol officer,is now working at a plant teeming with radiation,and an accident leaves him with days to live.

So he goes to a person called Spider,who helps smuggle people into Elysium,many of whom are smirkingly shot dead by Foster’s Secretary Delacourt. Spider will help him out on the condition that he first steal the data from the brain of a high-ranking Elysium citizen. Damon’s head is the subject of much poking and digging in here — even more than his much-abused body — and you can’t but feel sorry for his shining pate.

That’s about the only human thing that you come close to pitying though,despite the mother (Braga) and child Elysium throws in harm’s way. Your focus and ever-rising irritation is likely to be concentrated on Agent Kruger sent by Delacourt to kill Max. Played by Copley,Kruger is in your face and takes up too much time for Elysium’s own good.

And what’s the point of building a space station when 80 per cent of the film is going to rest in dystopian Earth? And what’s the point of,when there,focusing largely on the completely-out-of-it Foster? She hams through her dictatorial Delacourt,changing between similar white and grey suits while running down politicians and working up a sinister smile.