[5]

Writer/director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) serves up a blunt class struggle allegory set in a future where the filthy rich live on Elysium, a nice orbiting space station, while the rest of us live on the wastelands of planet Earth. Matt Damon stars as the working-class hero who risks it all to break into the floating utopia where he can cure himself and a friend's child of their fatal illnesses and facilitate a coup. His mission threatens Elysium's security czar, played by an icy cold Jodie Foster, who is plotting a coup of her own. She summons a crazed secret agent (Sharlto Copley) to stop Damon before her plans are foiled.

After the brilliance of District 9, I have to admit my hopes were high for Elysium, and that may be why I’m so critical of it. For all the balls Blomkamp throws up in the air, the story is surprisingly predictable and pedestrian. I can only think of one surprising moment in the entire film, and it’s not one I care for. What’s worse, the third act falls into cloying sentimentality and heavy-handed morality. Damon, Foster, and Copley are all fine actors, but their characters are thinly drawn and I had a hard time investing in any of them. Blomkamp’s over-reliance on shaky-cam photography further alienated me.

Elysium may be a serviceable sci-fi action flick, but coming from the creative force behind District 9, one of my favorite films of the last ten years, I can’t hide my disappointment.