First appeared in artsfuse.org
Remember Neill Blomkamp's District 9, how original, how full
of surprises it was — the Prawns, as they were derisively known, from outer
space, and their shanty town? The movie seemed a clanky, improvised, by the
seat of your pants kind of thing, low-to-no budget, and full of weird,
politically incorrect reflections about racism, privilege, and power.
My point is that whatever distinguished District 9 and made
it so special is entirely absent from Neill Blomkamp's blockbuster, Elysium.
I'd rate Elysium a DON'T SEE, or a MUST MISS, unless you just can't get enough
of guys in robotic exoskeletons whaling on each other, even if one happens to
be Matt Damon. Me, I got bored pretty quick when I realized that kind of
violence was really all that I was supposed to take home with me.
The only thing this movie has in its favor is that Blomkamp knows how to
quote/borrow.
Remember that scene in "Blue Collar" when Yaphet
Kotto, playing a Detroit factory worker — hey, remember Detroit? auto-workers?
blue collar? — is sealed in a room with the mechanical hoses that spray paint
cars? He bangs desperately on the glass door as he sinks into suffocation.
There's a scene in Elysium that should remind you of that.
Though the idea was worthy of reuse, there's no getting around the fact that it
made you care more in Blue Collar.
Or remember that machine in Stargate that heals human
bodies? The alien in that movie assumes human form precisely because he thinks
our bodies are so easy to fix. A machine like that is integral to Elysium. The
machine in Stargate was more intriguing simply because Stargate is a much
better movie.
I'm going to get all reductionist on Elysium: its budget is
estimated at $115 million, over three times the budget of District 9. For all
that dough, Elysium got Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, and, oh, yeah, Blomkamp
himself. In District 9 Blomkamp played someone who is transformed internally
and externally; he is Prawnifed physically and humanized emotionally. In Elysium
he's just this guy in a robotic exoskeleton whaling away at whomever.
I forgot to mention that for all that Hollywood cash, Elysium
was subjected to the typical Hollywood overdose on special effects. The move
choked on them. It's like Yaphet Kotto dying of paint fumes and unable to get
out.
My conclusion is that a director like Blomkamp, who makes a
film like District 9 for what is regarded in the movie business as low dough,
should be restricted to that same budget in his next film and the one after
that.
This film didn't need Matt Damon or Jodie Foster or the
digital overdose. It needed the kind of imagination Blomkamp had in District 9.
Maybe he's lost it.
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