Elysium

ACTION/ADVENTURE, DRAMA

The Haves and the Have Nots

8.0 out of 10 | MOVIE OR DVD

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Rated: R Strong bloody violence and language throughout
Release Date: August 9, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes

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Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writers: Neill Blomkamp
Cast: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura, William Fichtner, Brandon Auret, Josh Auret, Emma Tremblay

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SYNOPSIS: Set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth, a man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds.

REVIEW: District 9 writer/director Neill Blomkamp return for his second film in the dystopian sci-fi near-future genre. Impressing critics and audiences alike with the refugee alien film, Blomkamp sets foot into a similar soil to present how the near-future is not unlike what the world is like today.

In the year 2154, the richest of the world's population has escapes from the overpopulated and blight-ridden planet to live on a lush orbiting satellite habitat named Elysium. Max (Matt Damon, Promised Land) has grown up in poverty and in an orphanage in Los Angeles, dreaming of the day he could buy a ticket for the habitant. He steals and scraps away with an existence with the single purpose to get him and his best friend Frey (Alice Braga, The Rite) in mind. When an assembly line accident leaves Max with only days to live, he contacts a man from his old life, Spider (Wagner Moura, Father's Chair), for a favor and a ticket on a transport to space. Instead, Spider gives Max a suicide mission... taker the bank and account codes out of the head of a Elysium 'citizen' named John Carlyle (William Fichtner, The Lone Ranger). What Max can't anticipate is that John Carlyle has critical data that concerns Elysium, its defense minister Delacourt (Jodie Foster, Panic Room), and a sleeper agent named Kruger (Sharlto Copley, District 9).

Neill Blomkamp is a master of creating near-future societies that mirror and echo the socially relevant of today. In District 9, he dealt with class structures, racism, and the politics of refugees. In Elysium, he writes and directs, essentially, about the 1%. Just like in today's society and economy, the richest of us live outside the confines of a normal life, controlling and directing the mechanisms of power. And, like in today's world, the desolate and downtrodden are a scourge to be hidden out of sight. What better way to live a conscious-free life than to look down on a ruined Earth from a place in the heavens.

Elysium continues Blomkamp's mastery of creating a real-world environment that meshes seamlessly with gritty and polished CGI special effects. The barren landscape of Los Angeles could be any number of modern day impoverished locales around the world. Add in a little decoration of blowing paper and burned out vehicles and you have a world bereft of hope beyond looking to the stars at the orbiting ring in the sky. The robots, the Elysium habitat, the set design, the shuttles and the weaponry are beautifully rendered and woven into the visual spectacle of the story. Unlike the CGI-heavy Star Wars franchise or the fantasy look of the Lord of the Rings films, Blomkamp balances the practical and visual effects perfectly!

Elysium is the perfect followup for District 9 for the director. It has the same style as his first film while delivering a completely different message. I do still like District 9 better. Copely was such an underdog character in that film that it was heartbreaking to watch his struggle and physical changes. Matt Damon's Max, while also an underdog, carries with him a spark and drive that leads the audience to believe that he cannot fail. Copely returns as the sinister and off-center Kruger, shedding his waif self in  favor of the semi-bionic breaded mercenary. I did also enjoy the performances by Alice Braga as Frey, Wagner Moura as Spider, and Diego Luna as Julio. Jodie Foster's Delacourt is abrasive, coarse, and sinister as Elysium's power hungry defense minister, but she could have played the part with a little more fake courtesy.

Elysium is a smartly written, poignant sci-fi drama that most fans of the genre will appreciate. I marveled at the story and the cinematography. Just the tiniest bit disappointed that I was not more emotionally invested in the characters, I still found plenty to enjoy!

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The Beaver

Leave It To The Beaver

Director: Jodie Foster

Writer: Kyle Killen

Stars: Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence, Riley Thomas Stewart, Cherry Jones

SYNOPSIS: A serious depressed and suicidal man starts talking through a puppet of a beaver in an attempt to reconnect with wife, children and employees.

Jodie Foster directs and stars in this quirky dark dramedy with Mel Gibson. As Walter Black, Mel Gibson is a man who has lost himself and his way to happiness. After years of self-help books, therapists and prescription drugs, Walter still walks through his life in an uninterested, detached haze. When his wife, Meredith (Jodie Foster) finally forces him to move out, Walter then stumbles even further into his suicidal downward spiral. Failing to hang himself on the hotel bathroom curtain rod, he is confronted by an Aussie voice talking through a beaver puppet he happened to have on his hand. Working through the puppet as his spokesman, Walter sets out to reclaim his place in his family and business.

The subject matter is difficult and strange, but Foster presents it well. This story could be any of a man struggling through life, but The Beaver’s use of, well, a beaver is at times appropriately humorous, somewhat strange and ultimately dangerous. Foster does not try to force the talking furry puppet into its own frame, content with letting the audience see Walter speak through and work the beaver together. Of course, Walter’s youngest son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) adores the Beaver, eager to have his father in his life. Walter’s oldest son, Porter (Anton Yelchin) , resents that he himself has any similarities with his father. And how much can Meredith (Jodie Foster) take of a beaver that never leaves her husband’s arm.

In addition to Walter, we also see the subplot of a son running from his father and what the son sees he may become, all the while finding voices for others as he gets paid to write essays and compositions for their classes. As he escapes from himself into others, he loses what it is that makes him an individual. Even his interest in the Valedictorian cheerleader leads him further down a road that is not his own.

Foster uses the son’s use of the hanging post-its of his similarities to his father as a way to define a person’s traits as individual elements that can be removed from the whole. She uses other visual elements to also denote the boxed in, but fractured essence that is the center of the film. What tools are used to build scrap wood memory boxes for the youngest son also serves as a reminder of the reality that Walter is unable to cope with.

Faint hints of the ventriloquist’s dummy in Magic comes through. Is Walter the voice for the puppet, or is he the puppet as the extension of the beaver? In the third act, a momentous confrontation ensues between Walter and the Beaver, echoing another film that I refrain from offering since it may give away too much.

In all, The Beaver is strange and interesting. Gibson’s depiction of Walter’s depression is palpable. And you can see Jodie Foster’s Meredith tired of standing by her man as he spins out of his mind. Can a man find peace through a mouthpiece while unable to cope without it? And what must a man lose or gain in order to fight back from sanity’s brink? Since this film is only in 22 theaters around the country, you will not have much opportunity to take in this film at the moment, but if you are a fan of Jodie Foster or Mel Gibson's What Women Want, this film may be attractive to you.

WORTH: Matinee or Netflix