What the critics are saying: ‘Elysium’

TORONTO — The year is 2154 and an overpopulated Earth sits in ruins. The wealthy and privileged live far from the mess on a space station called Elysium.

The movie of the same name, directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9), stars Matt Damon as a man desperately trying to get to the highly-secured Elysium, which is ruled by Defense Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster).

Canadian audiences may notice the idyllic Elysium resembles British Columbia — the film was partially shot in and around Vancouver.

But are there other reasons to buy a ticket to Elysium? Is it a sci-fi thrill ride or a big dysto-pointment? Here’s a look at what a few critics are saying:

Steve Tilley of the QMI Agency described Elysium as “formulaic and occasionally silly” but said it is “visually dazzling.”

However, Tilley complained the movie has more brawn than brains.

“Either Blomkamp figures audiences have become dumber in the last four years (probably not an unfair assumption) or a significantly bigger budget meant more studio meddling,” he wrote. “Nobody knows how to apply grit and grime to futuristic settings quite like Blomkamp. Maybe next time he’ll smear some brains on there, too.”

Still, Tilley concluded Elysium “is entertaining and well-paced, and the jaw-dropping visual effects and artistic design help distract from the plot holes and histrionics.”

Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers came away from Elysium with the exact opposite impression — writing that Blomkamp’s “approach to blending brains with brawn … lifts him above the spineless herd.”

He added: “Elysium delivers sci-fi without dumbing it down. It’s a hell-raiser with a social conscience.”

At IGN, Chris Tilly seemed to agree. He described Elysium as an “intelligent” film and “jaw-dropping entertainment.”

“If you are looking for serious science-fiction, bursting with allegory and social commentary, you need look no further than Elysium,” he wrote.

Tilly conceded that the movie “follows the conventions of the sci-fi action genre a little too closely.”

He wrote: “The story itself smacks of the familiar.”

Richard Corliss of TIME also found Elysium familiar.

“Blomkamp stitches patches from a bunch of other sci-fi films — the rich-poor futureworld of Gattaca, In Time and Upside Down, plus the mind-melding caper from Inception — that devolve into a numbingly familiar series of chases and fights,” he said.

“For the token romantic interest, he has Max bond with an ER nurse named Frey (gorgeous Alice Braga, who has played this same role, the Angel of Dystopia, in City of God, I Am Legend and Blindness). Guess what? They knew each other as children — orphans in a convent! And guess what else? Max has five days to live, and Frey’s daughter Matilda (Emma Tremblay) is dying of leukemia. Puh-lease. Can’t a movie stir tension without endangering a child’s life?”

Carla Meyer of The Sacramento Bee called Elysium a “thoughtful political commentary.”

She wrote: “This sci-fi thriller offers what’s been missing throughout a summer of straightforward blockbusters that wouldn’t know subtext if it yanked on their capes.”

Meyer noted the film “sometimes seems overedited and overscored, with choppy scenes and musical cues that put too fine a point on the action or the stakes.”

Postmedia movie reviewer Katherine Monk concluded that despite its action and visual effects, Elysium fails to be entertaining because it lacks character.

“Damon’s hero feels flat and one-dimensional because he’s not really conflicted in any way, outside of his immediate physical issue,” she wrote. “The same goes for Foster’s ice queen Delacourt.”

Monk added that Foster’s “big scenes” and Damon’s “mighty screen presence” feel wasted.

At The Wall Street Journal, John Anderson opined that Damon “brings both a weary optimism and convincing physicality” to his character.

Anderson also singled out William Fichtner, who “brings a very subtle characterization to the loathsome John Carlyle,” and Jodie Foster who is “terrifying” as Elysium’s defence secretary Delacourt.

Kenneth Turan of the L.A. Times, however, called Foster one-dimensional and her enforcer Kruger (Sharlto Copley) “even more of a cliché.”

In the New York Post, Kyle Smith was critical of both Damon and Foster.

Foster, he added, “is embarrassingly bad in the film — she may be the most overrated actress alive — and I couldn’t tell you what accent she was mangling. Perhaps all of them?”