Elysium [4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital] [4K UHD]

Neil Blomkamp has done it again and shown us that "District 9" was not a one-trick pony. His part-dystopian, part-visionary look into a futuristic Earth set in the 22nd century is a fantastic spectacle laced with some social commentary.Matt Damon plays the hero of this action-drama set in a future in which human society on Earth has suffered significant decay. Those with wealth and means have escaped the planetary bounds to live in an artificial ring-world habitat called Elysium in orbit about the planet. As the story unfolds, it soon becomes clear that those who live in Elysium are in power and have the best that modern science and technology has to offer to support their lives, while the masses on Earth live in squalor in a police-state society.Damon's character is a factory worker with a criminal past that is just scraping by when misfortune enters his life. The only way out for him is to reach Elysium, but citizens from Earth are apparently almost never allowed to go there. His journey to try to get there requires desperate measures that set up an action-driven plotline laced with elements of drama and a bit of political intrigue.I love both the look and intensity of this film. Neil Blomkamp shows us a future that is technologically-advanced in a plausible way , but that also contains some sobering and somewhat terrifying elements. The story is accessible and easy to relate to without unnecessary complication, and yet the society we are shown has a depth and complexity that makes it compelling and all too real. Although we are not given much of the history that leads to this future, it is not hard to extrapolate from certain elements of current human society and accept this as one plausible outcome.I would have loved to have spent more time being immersed in this world, but what's there is a self-contained story that should leave most viewers satisfied with time well spent. Our solace for having to leave is that Blomkamp is still early in his career as a writer and director, and we can hope to see much more of his creativity and storytelling in years to come.

Blonkamp's vision is soo original and developed in extreme depth, it's hard not to be completely fascinated by the world he proposes. Even for brief scenes, enormous amounts of prop development and preproduction are brought to bear. This movie is very well edited, and very economic in it's character development. The memory scenes of Max and a small boy are so critical to our understanding of the antagonist. I have watched this movie over 20 times, and I still love the pace. There is no movie structured like this. There are some huge leaps that are easy to accept once you understand that they each move the action forward at a hectic rate. This movie starts off at 100% and there is not a single moment to rest until the end. One thing I like about Blonkamp's aesthetic is how character death is never the result of a bullet being fired, though there are many fired. He likes to display the cheapness and uselessness of bullets, preferring a sword, a fist fight, or some exotic explosive to be the killing blow. This is a stand alone movie, it begins and ends very conclusively. I wish it could have been universally popular enough for a company to make toys, because the robots and airships are soo awesome. The scene of Damon getting roughed up by the street cop robots is some of the best cinema of all time.

Elysium was made by Neill Blomkamp, the same director that brought us the great District 9. Elysium falls far short of District 9, but still manages to be a very good movie. I am a complete sucker for a good sci-fi Dystopian future-type film including such films as Blade Runner and yes, even the Mad Max stuff. Some critics have complained that Elysium is too "political" and reeks of "Marxism" and other claims. Certainly, Elysium comes at us with a particular political and world-view which is, in my opinion, not so far off from the current social situation: the separation and division between the haves and have-nots. Elysium simply examines and explores this social reality and carries it to it's extreme. That is it's primary plot device. It is not so absurd as it seems when you examine human history. As ridiculous as the entire Nazi attempt to annihilate an entire people was, it did happen. And that is but one example of some of the strange notions that float about in the human heart from certain people who would have and control it all. So we are dealing in the realm of probability here, not just with some odd, off-the-wall absurdity.That being said, Elysium does suffer from some actual absurdities itself, often going way over-the-top with certain things. I failed to buy into the robot cops who control the have-not populace. I also failed to buy into the development of those "magical" devices of the haves that can seemingly diagnose and cure any kind of disease, such as leukemia, within a couple of minutes simply by lying down in it. The entire exo-skeleton human enhancement device that is implanted onto our hero, Matt Damon, which becomes one strong factor in allowing him to beat up bad guys seems all wrong and ridiculous. But now I'm getting nit-picking. The real questions are: is Elysium worth taking your time to watch and is Elysium a good movie? My response is an absolute unqualified yes! If you are a fan of dystopian sci-fi movies like I am, I think you will enjoy it. If you have a rigid political viewpoint that finds any notion of a separation of classes based on wealth offensive or the introduction of any political viewpoint into your movies, then I wouldn't bother watching it.As for me, I enjoyed Elysium in spite of the fact that it is far from a great movie. It is a film I will be certain to watch many times in the future.