Elysium

'Elysium' is South African born, Vancouver based director, Neill Blomkamp's follow up to his amazing debut feature film, 'District 9'. And just like with 'District 9' Blomkamp is proving yet again that sci-fi movies can have a social and political message without bashing you over the head with it.

It's better up there. That's the tagline for this movie, and 'up there' is Elysium; a beautiful, man-made space station floating in orbit around an Earth that is overpopulated and over polluted. Up there is where the wealthiest live, and while the film doesn't give much of a view of how they live, I would hazard a guess that they have it pretty easy. The rest of the population, stuck on Earth, has it far worse. Slums have taken over and people are struggling to survive.  Especially Max, (Matt Damon) a reformed car thief doing his best to make it day by day, with big dreams of making it to Elysium some day. After a factory accident that gives him five days to live, Max becomes the perfect person to attempt to finally get past the harsh anti-immigration cannons of Elysium. Once there he can use one of the CT scan type things that identify and remove disease from citizens of Elysium. Max is outfitted with a kind of awesome, but mostly horrifying cyborg-type rig he goes head-to-head in a race against time opposite Kruger(Sharlto Copley), Elysium's Secretary of Defense Delacourt's (Jodie Foster) favourite mercenary, who makes a habit out of shooting refugees out of the sky.

While I'll be the first to admit the class struggle allegory in this film isn't quite as strong as the allegory of racial allegory in 'District 9', it doesn't make it any less enjoyable. I love that Blomkamp is making sci-fi smart again, not just the bubblegum 'movie-of-the-summer' sci-fi flicks that many studios have put out in the last decade. On top of the politics, Blomkamp also has an amazing eye for special effects. Often special effects these days are so smooth and CGI-looking that they take you right out of the story. The effects we get in 'Elysium' are gritty and corporeal, when a shuttle crashes it doesn't just blow up into a perfect orange fireball, it's machinery wrenched apart, like it should be.

I also love that this movie is only 109 minutes long. Blomkamp recognises that his audience is relatively intelligent and doesn't need to bash them over the head with detailed minutiae that they can infer for themselves. He, instead, pushes forward with the things the audience cares about and wants to see. In an age when movies are insufferably long for no good reason (coughTheLoneRangercough) Elysium tells its story in the perfect running time. When movies like this are made it makes me excited for what could come next, from Blomkamp and from sci-fi in general.

The Adjustment Bureau

As per the poll results,[which seven whole people participated in!] I hit up 'The Adjustment Bureau' for my matinee today. I made my return to Metopolis at Metrotown, after seeing the last couple of movies at Tinseltown, mostly 'cause movies there are $4, that right FOUR dollars cheaper, but I had a free ticket with my Scene card, so to Metrotown I went!

Now I know that 'The Adjustment Bureau' is billed as a thriller, but really and truly this is romance masquerading as a thriller, and it does a damn good job of it too.

The premise lies around David Norris [Matt Damon] a young politician who is running for the senate, but is undone by some antics from his college days. While in the mensroom composing his concession speech he meets Elise [Emily Blunt] a wedding crasher who's come to hide from security. The chemistry is instantaneous, and they flirt unabashedly culminating in, for David at least, a life-altering kiss. Instead of giving the approved speech he improvises and goes on about how everything about him and his campaign is carefully crafted to have the most positive impact on the voting public. I can only imagine that everything he says is completely true, especially in the incomprehensible [to this Canadian, at least] American electoral system. Instead of harpooning his political career, this honesty makes him more popular than ever...which it turns out was all a part of the Plan.

Now we come to the sci-fi-Philip K. Dick inspired part of the story. It turns out that while most of us believe that we make our own decisions and can trust to fate, there's actually a group of well dressed men in fedoras who make sure our 'fate' is as it should be. Not affecting every little detail of our lives, but if something starts to go off track, they jump in and adjust it, so that we get back on Plan. Sounds a little ridiculous right? I grant you that, but this film manages to pull it off.

Needless to say where we should maybe be concerned that this politician is being manipulated by the bureau and it's shadowy leader 'The Chairman' all we really care about is if he gets the girl, well, and if the girl gets him. I know I mentioned it before, but it still remains, the chemistry between Blunt and Damon is fantastic. There is an undeniable pull between them, and apparently, even though the Plan says they shouldn't be, chance keeps putting them together. When they're together there's an amazing magnetism and when they're apart the longing for the other is evident. I've always been a Matt Damon fan, but I can't really say I've ever seen him as a more romantic character. Although it could be that he just needed the right co-star. Emily Blunt is quirky and charming, and she brings out the best in Damon just as her character brings out the best in David.

In the climax of the movie when things come to a head, David is racing through New York using the Bureau's fancy hat travelling system [I know, it's silly, but at least they look good, right?] and brings a confused Elise with him. When it comes down to it, and she's faced with the decision to either follow David, despite the insanity of the situation, or returning to her life without him, you know the inevitable answer. There's no way one can go without the other.

Like I said, a romance masquerading as a thriller. Despite that it was very well done, extremely well acted, by both the leads and the supporting actors. There were also some nice touches that leant to the realism of the story, New Yorkers stopping David on the street and interviews with the always awesome Jon Stewart. These little things make up for the plot holes and varying tone in the film, so that you don't really notice them, well until you think about them afterwards anyways.

That's all for this week, and I promise I'll get my Feb trailer round up posted soon! Until next Monday!