Neill Blomkamp's dystopian sci-fi has good intentions but suffers from too much brutality and a muddled plot
Made in 2009 by Neill Blomkamp, a South African based in Canada, District 9 is one of the best SF-horror flicks of recent years, an imaginatively made, darkly humorous satire centring on the treatment of a horde of insect-like aliens confined to concentration camps in South Africa. His new film, Elysium, pursues similar themes of class, xenophobia, greed and totalitarianism, but it's altogether more conventional in conception and muddled in its narrative.
Like Pixar's animated masterwork, WALL-E, it posits what is now a familiar dystopian scenario: a future world so utterly polluted that a privileged part of mankind has moved on to a specially created space station called Elysium to live a sybaritic life while depressed proles remain behind. Matt Damon is the Winston Smith figure, a sad, decent, blue-collar ex-criminal who revolts against the system after becoming terminally affected by radiation sickness. He sets out to penetrate Elysium to find a cure for himself and his girlfriend's daughter. Meanwhile, Jodie Foster, an authoritarian leader clad in a white Armani suit, is planning a coup in Elysium to displace some spineless liberals, and a loose cannon is at large in the form of a disgruntled former Elysium mercenary (the ferocious Sharlto Copley from District 9). It's impressively designed by Philip Ivey, who worked on both District 9 and The Lord of the Rings, but depressingly predictable in its ideas and tedious in its boneheaded brutality.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/25/elysium-film-review-matt-damon
No comments:
Post a Comment