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Rich Way's Up

It's the dark, dirty future, and things have gotten grim. Life down here on Earth are just not what it used to be. The streets are policed by robots, the only work to be had is hard labor, medical care is sparse and crime rates are high. In Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium", the last place you want to be is terra firma. Things are much better in the sky.

The class divide has never been wider. Literally. Gritty poverty reigns supreme on Earth, but the rich don't mind because they're soaring miles above it all. On Elysium, a massive, rotating space station, the wealthy take their refuge: sipping champagne, lounging in their lush green gardens, wining and dining. It's a caricature of the idle rich and they're living large, with head of homeland security Delacourt (Jodie Foster) keeping things exclusive.

Getting to Elysium is not really an option to those left behind, but that won't stop Max - aptly played by Matt Damon - from trying. An orphan from boyhood, Max is determined to put his checkered past behind him, work hard in his thankless factory job, and find a way up. Luck, however, is not in his favor. Between an altercation with the police that leaves him with a broken arm followed almost immediately by a terrible accident in the factory, he is left impaired, fatally irradiated and dying fast.

So what's a guy to do? Get to Elysium, of course. In every mansion is a magical healing machine (never really explained), that scans your body and (if you're a citizen of Elysium) fixes that which ails you. Neat, right? Max knows that if he can get to one of these, he'll live. With the help of some shady characters from his past, he gets his chance... but only if he agrees to steal some pretty hefty intellectual property from the brain of corporate bigwig John Carlyle (William Fichtner).

Of course, Carlyle is also in cahoots with Delacourt. In a very "Matrix Reloaded" move, Carlyle has been called upon to rewrite some of the main programming of Elysium, to reboot the core and oust the current (rather ineffectual) president, giving Delacourt absolute power... which he does in a couple of days. Like the use of the Architect in The Matrix, both the idea and execution are pretty ridiculous. But that's okay because by now, things have gotten Loud.

Loud and fast and explodey. This is Matt Damon in his action movie element, and from here the plot only exists to serve the action... which is pretty impressive. For a guy dying of radiation poisoning (and taking his medication with dubious irregularity), he does pretty well - even with the exoskeleton he was given before being dispatched on his mission. He has a very worthy nemesis in Kruger ("District 9"'s Sharlto Copley) so things stay exciting.

If you loved Neill Blomkamp's first feature film, "District 9", you may be disappointed. This film has all of the grittiness with much less depth. "Elysium" values action above all else. Sure the story is a mashup of tropes, but with great acting, a high production value and good editing, it's fun to watch. Ultimately, it's hard not to compare Mr Blomkamp with the likes of M Night Shyamalan, whose breakout "The Sixth Sense" was followed by a whole lot of mediocrity, but I'm happy to give him the benefit of the doubt. As far as summer blockbusters go, "Elysium" is unlikely to disappoint.