Whenever I post a piece that gets to be unavoidably negative, I feel the need to quickly move on and post something else, preferably positive to restore some kind of internet juju (I’m superstitious that way). Now, while I wasn’t crazy about Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up screenplay to District 9, I did find it entertaining. It’s set in the future, less than one hundred fifty years from now. The separation between rich and poor is as clear as those who live on torus (or man-made planet) Elysium, the size of the moon, and those who hover below on Earth. Residents of Elysium are rich and medical and cosmetic care is as easy as slipping into your own private medical bay located in your home. In a matter of seconds, you are healed, and restored to a younger version of yourself. When Earthling Max (Matt Damon loses his job after contracting a life-threatening illness, he enlists the aid of a smuggler who funnels illegals onto the torus via space shuttle. As a general warning, there are spoilers riddled in this post, which is based on an undated draft. I don’t know if there was a “better” draft before the big studios got involved, or this was ground zero.
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| Matt Damon as Max |
Plot Summary (spoilers)
Little boy Max Da Costa (Maxwell Perry Cotton) helps a nun (Yolanda Abbud L.) wash clothes in Los Angeles. The torus Elysium, a space habitat as big as the moon, hovers above in the far distance. She explains that only the rich live very long lives there and a commercial shows a woman receiving an instant, non-invasive surgical facial, as well as a corrective medical scan, in a medical bay sponsored by Gucci. However, people try to immigrate illegally. Max shares that Pedro told him he can become rich and move to Elysium by becoming a dealer, an idea of which the nun disapproves of. Fast forward to Max as an adult (Matt Damon) living in a favela spreading across the Hollywood Hills, which is no longer part of the United States in 2109 (or, I guess 2154). Insufficient amounts of food are dispersed to the impoverished masses via hovercraft. Robotic police officers walk along a train with scanners that evasively procure the passenger’s personal information. They approach Max and attack him when he resists their search procedures. At the CCB headquarters on Elysium, Secretary Rhodes (Jodie Foster) presides over the mission control activity. An agent reports some foreign activity with incoming ships carrying illegals. After assessing collateral damage, she commands that agent Kruger (Sharlto Copley) located on earth with access to missile systems take them out with weaponry. Her orders are successfully carried out and she’s summoned to the briefing center. Kruger, when prompted, informs some nearby kids that he’s “not really” the police.
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| Jodie Foster as Secretary Rhodes |
At an overcrowded Los Angeles hospital, Nurse Frey attends to Max’s wounds from the police
altercation. Max proceeds to his job at the biosphere factory where Elysium police and military droids are produced, presided over by Elysium CEO John Carlyle (a perfectly cast William Fichtner). A foreman reprimands him for being late again. In the CCB HB briefing room, representatives explain to Rhodes that her actions have created a more difficult problem on Earth. She’s consequently demoted a couple of levels, and they sever all ties with Kruger. Rhodes is naturally unhappy, as she believes the only way to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants is to annihilate them, otherwise, they will be facing bigger issues once Elysium is overrun with the “great unwashed.” One, of the reps, Patel (Faran Tahir), believes that when that happens, he “will have moved.” Kruger, upon receiving notification that he must return all Elysium-related materials, kills his dog. |
| This is L.A. 2154 |
Max attends his parole hearing at a robotic-administered station, where his earlier resistance to the officers on the train extend his parole another eight months. The officer offers him a purchase of a Pfizer testosterone pill due to a detected high heart-rate. When he starts getting sarcastic, we learn it’s considered abusive and could result in a federal offense. At home, his friend Julio (Diego Luna) brings him a beer, and tries to persuade Max to start selling pot again. At the hospital, a fellow nurse expresses some concern towards Frey. Dr. Faizel informs her that there is no more room for her sick daughter Matilda (Emma Tremblay) and she must take her home.
While trying to fix a temporary defect in the kiln’s door at work, Max is trapped inside. The factory shuts down and Carlyle observes the company’s stock price immediately start to fall. Thanks to some workers and a robot, Max is saved. Flashback to Max’s youth, when the nun comforts him with a photograph of what is the gem that is planet Earth (from the viewpoint of Elysium)—the grass is always greener. During an examination, a Hazmat robot informs Max that he has been exposed to radiation, which will result in several biological malfunctions leading to his death weeks from now; he’s also terminated from his job. Accidentally stumbling into a restrictive area on his way out, he’s treated even more poorly by sentry. As the weak Max makes his way home, Julio comes to his assistance.
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| Elysium |
They walk to the lair of Spider (Wagner Moura) who has his own mission control sending illegal
shuttles to Elysium. In order for Max to get a ticket, he must either pay $90,000 (which he doesn’t have or complete a mission of kidnapping an Elysian on Earth and using a device to extract information from his brain that could be worth billions, before Elysium catches wind and cuts off access. Spider will supply him a data wrangler. Max requests the mark be Carlyle and negotiates further for Julio’s ticket. Later, Frey approaches Spider’s lair, sees Max, and then leaves after getting roughed up by a thug. At her home while her daughters play, Rhodes places a call to Carlyle. He explains that he is still working on the preliminaries for controlling the “entire mainframe,” but will soon need Rhodes’ physical presence so he can hook up her “biometrics into the program.” She informs him that he’s going to have to transport the data without her. He counters that it took him decades to build the impenetrable program, and he just can’t whip up something in a few hours to protect it for transfer. |
| Max receives his microchip |
Max and Julio visit the basement of Spider’s lair, which is full of medical equipment. Sandro (Jose Pablo Cantillo) emblazes Max’s wrist with a faux Elysium ID code, as well as other surgical procedures. There’s a flashback to when a young Max steals a watch from a younger Frey. The next morning, Max wakes up wearing a special hulc suit bolted to his bones, transforming him into a walking hard-drive with superhuman strength (kind of like the robot Ripley operates in the climax of Aliens, but not really). Manuel (Arian Holmes) gives him an AK47.
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| Shuttle? |
At the factory, Carlyle finishes a computer sequence, and then transfers information from his consul into his body via USB ports. Max, Julio, Spider, Sandro, and Manuel prime themselves for Carlyle’s departure, as Spider has created a technical difficulty for the Elysians. On his way in his limo, they create a traffic collision and corner Carlyle in a shootout between the men and security robots. Rhodes gets report of this all playing out and contacts Kruger. In a flurry of bullets, Manuel shoots Carlyle. Max tears a laser out of Sandro’s grip, and then rips a robot to shreds. Kruger figures out that Rhodes’ business is unofficial and uses it as leverage for a clean slate (who does he think he is, Selena Kyle?), a mansion on Elysium, as well as a ticket for a companion. He alludes that she has tried to get this for him before and failed. She commissions “two of [his] old agents” dispatched in the form of a “vtol” or stealth craft called Raven which takes thirty seconds to get to him (begging the question why it takes about eighteen minutes to return, no?). It holds Drake (Brandon Auret) and Crowe (Josh Blacker), who greet him as he boards.
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| A Raven? |
Max stops Carlyle from committing suicide. Sandro connects Max’s data router to Carlyle and commences syncing. The Raven approaches as the upload nears completion. The whole time, Elysium mission command is aware of exactly what is transpiring in real time. There’s an error reported in the uploading (which is, duh, a red herring). Manuel and Sandro bail. Julio tries to help Max escape, who has become unresponsive due to exhaustion from the transfer. Kruger annihilates Sandro with a laser. Julio pulls Max into a car and takes off, except Kruger destroys the front of the vehicle with another laser. Max saves Julio. Kruger, having gotten out of the Raven, kills Julio with a knife. Max fires at Kruger, but he deflects the bullets with a force-field like power. Kruger then kills Carlyle and leaves on the Raven. Max returns to his home, with the Raven in pursuit, but they can’t pick up his signal while he hides amongst donkeys.
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| Mission Control? |
Frey prepares to take Matilda home. Kruger sends out unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to tighten the search for Max and has Drake create a city-wide signal jam. Spider, in his lair, is confused as to how to proceed with all of his flights, or ability to cancel them, without any power. Max approaches Frey for help, but pleads for her discretion, even though she doesn’t want to get involved with his criminal activity. Rhodes uses her security clearance to enter the protocol room which houses Elysium’s “most important computer.” She tries to access Carlyle’s “data cluster,” but she’s denied. She has a run-in with Patel who informs her he’s aware of Kruger’s actions. Frey helps Max to her home, which is also set up to be an amateur medical facility for Matilda, after she settles her daughter. Frey has to jump start Max’s heart with defibrillators. Max has a flashback to playing with Julio as children. The next morning, over coffee, Frey questions Max about his suit and informs him he only has days to live before all his organs give out. Having spotted him at Spider’s, she enlists him to help her get Matilda to Elysium, so she can be cured in one of the medical beds. Later, he suffers a seizure. He steals Matilda’s money for the ticket to Elysium and leaves, narrowly dodging Kruger’s clutches via a UAV.
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| Matilda |
At Spider’s lair, Max demands a ticket, but Spider explains that the flight system may be permanently jammed. He plugs Max to a computer scan and Spider realizes that he has more than he originally set out for. “We could make every human a citizen of Elysium. That code gives us the power to run their whole system.” He comes up with a plan: “We fly up there, break into the central server and upload [Max’s information] into it.” Sounds easy enough, right? Land illegally on another planet, even though flight systems are grounded, break into its most protected facility with no clearance or inside connections, and voila! Spider would control all of Elysium! Max doesn’t want any part of this. He only wants to get better. Spider plants a tracking chip on him. If Spider doesn’t assist him, Max threatens to make a deal with Elysium or he’s going to blow himself up.
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| Gucci Med Bay |
Kruger and his men invade Frey’s home. He kidnaps the females, deciding that they’re going to be his family on Elysium. Max arrives too late to save them, as the Raven heads off. He captures their attention through a monitor on a downed UAV that chased Max earlier. The Raven returns and Max unpins a grenade and demands a trip to Elysium NOW! Kruger agrees. When Max sees Frey and Matilda on the Raven, he asks for him to free the mother. Spider tracks Max and prepares to follow him. Rhodes confirms Max’s arrival with Kruger. The trip there is awkward between Max and Frey. Max decides to throw the grenade into the cockpit, the Raven explodes, and crashes into Elysium. Rhodes requests a jet. Max frees Matilda and she hides in some rose bushes (!). Drake and Crowe try to subdue Max with artillery. Mission control picks up a signal on Max. Kruger tries to overpower Max with knives. Max kills him and saves Frey. Along with Matilda, they soak in Elysium’s majesty. It’s not too long before a Homeland Defense Raven comes after them. Rhodes orders droids to kill the two females, as they’re dispensable. Another Raven arrives. Max and company break into a vacant furnished house. The house scans him, detects his ailments, and orders him to a medical bay immediately. At a CCB armory, Rhodes orders droids to resuscitate the dead Kruger. They manage to bring him back to life as well as fix his wounds cosmetically. Max enters a medical bay and recovery is simply the push of a button away. Simple, right?
Spider lands with his men and stops the reatomization process; he insists they get the data out of Max before he heals. Frey can’t reatomize Matilda, who is now in full seizure and can’t be helped by a medical bay, because she doesn’t have a barcode ingrained in her wrist. Max agrees to Spider’s demands if he promises to save Matilda. Rhodes demands that Kruger recognize the severity of their situation, as they could both be tried for treason if they don’t get to Max. He slits her throat with a shard of broken mirror. She dies. Kruger seems to think that once he gets to Max, he will rule all of Elysium. Spider promises that they can download data at an armory, and once that’s done, Matilda can be healed, and nine billion people will become citizens of Elysium lickety-split.
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| Robotic droid |
Kruger, now armed in his own hulc suit prepares for battle. From a laptop, Frey radios Spider and the team coordinates of a substructure. Kruger throws a grenade. CCB agents investigate the explosion. Spider’s team enters an airlock. Kruger kills one of Spider’s men, Rico (Michael Mando), and then proceeds to liquefy Max’s gun with his hulc suit. Max doesn’t want to leave one of Spider’s men Manuel (hopefully a different Manuel from the one earlier on Earth who cowardly ditched Max), who saved him minutes before. Kruger incinerates Manuel’s gun and kicks him. Max engages in a fight with Kruger, before experiencing another seizure. Kruger kills Manuel and traps himself in airlock doors while chasing Max. Max, along with Spider, enter the CCB control room, which takes them to the gantry. The relentless Kruger breaks free and Max challenges him in another mono y mono. Max disengages Kruger’s suit and “kicks the living shit out of him.” Max loses energy and Kruger informs him, while laughing, that Max will die once his data is uploaded onto another consul, a piece of information Spider conveniently forgot to share with him. Max throws Kruger’s body over the gantry. Max has to choose between his life and saving the world (um, isn’t the choice kind of obvious?). There isn’t a lot of time, as security droids and officials are narrowing in on them. Spider seals the door shut. More droids discover Frey and Matildas’ whereabouts. Max connects to Spider and apologizes to Frey for stealing her watch when they were kids, as well as Matilda’s money. She forgives him. He leaves her the necklace the nun gave him and hits the “enter” key to commence transfer. Max dies. The droids break in and officials order Spider’s death. Suddenly, every single human becomes an Elysium citizen. Flashback to Max’s youth in prison getting beaten by a warden and then comforted by the nun. Matilda is healed.
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| Elysium |
Script Review (spoilers)
Logistics are always hard for me to follow in movies set in the drug world, politics, and science-fiction. So, it was slow going, but I enjoyed the ride. I’d describe it as a higher budget District 9 with elements of Total Recall (1990), Terminator 2, and the “Orison” portion of Cloud Atlas. It’s fun, interesting, and inventive, presenting a protagonist with a clear objective, wrestling with his own moral quandary, as well as external obstacles, etc. The themes are topical and feed into a liberal idealism contrasted with conservative individual spirit with sophomoric results. While every man is for himself, selfless benevolence is rewarded with unrealistically restoring full power and hope to the people. The screenplay touches on class envy, illegal immigration, adequate universal healthcare as a right, the elimination of personal privacy, government-commissioned privately-run military missions. Rich pitted against poor is a result of a combination of big business and technology, with government’s inability to adequately negotiate their long-term effects. The screenwriter provides no answers for the dystopia, but seems to campaign free healthcare should be as easy as crash landing on Elysium and breaking into its mainframe with the convenience of possessing the key to all the answers. A cinch, right?
As this story is pretty straight forward and the technical aspects weren’t often developed passed a surface level, there are unanswered questions. At the conclusion, one wonders how on earth (or, er, Elysium) did Earthlings begin peaking out from behind Elysium’s bushes? There are plenty of convenient contrivances, but they’re mostly forgivable. And, sometimes, some of the technical aspects aren’t made clear at first like when Max wakes up in the specialized suit bolted to his body (but, I think that has more to do with me than the screenplay). And the logistics behind when Spider wasn’t able to shuttle up to Elysium, why was it that he suddenly could (again, that might be a me thing, and not on the writer). The screenplay often dips into the absurd, which is fine, but I found one of the centerpieces of the story—these special, magical home medical bays located in every Elysium mansion—to be kind of hokey. As well, the rate of speed in which some of the crafts travel back and fourth I found inconsistent. Too many questions as far as making the story more expedient tends to make me less interested, especially when there isn’t a lot of memorable dialogue.
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| Kruger loves himself some samurai swords |
And, like what troubled me about Gravity, to a greater extent bothered me about Elysium, was the lack of deference to a consistent technology. If you’re going to set your story in the 22nd-Century when there are these fancy medical bays that cure cancer within seconds, does it really make sense to have humans on Earth carry around pieces of crumpled paper with addresses? A hundred years from now, in this movie’s world, at least, wouldn't pencil and paper seem like a thing of the past, even for the poor? I suspect people of less means will all have at least cheap cell phones. No? Maybe I’m being unrealistic and/or petty, okay, but can we at least agree that USB ports won’t exist? Haven’t we already begun entering the era of wirelessly transferred data? Perhaps the USB ports were for visual effect, but still. And, if we’re incinerating the enemy with lasers, are we really going to be breaking out 12th-Century Japanese swords? I know, I know, I’m getting nitpicky. But, if we're going to go there, then break out some throwing stars. Technology may move on, but some combat weapons never die, I guess. Perhaps we should expect this over-the-topness from the director, but, then, it begs the question: WHAT’S HE DOING WITH A $100M BUDGET?
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| Michael Ironside in Total Recall |
What is important in a far-fetched story like this, especially now that we’re living in a time where
filmmakers try to ground comic book adaptations in “reality,” is that the leaps of faith audience must take aren’t too multi-layered. If there is an element that is difficult to believe, it’s always sound to smooth things over or create a more solid basis for its existence. And just don’t assume audiences are going to ignore it or not notice. The brain is always asking questions, and the more you appeal to the highest common denominator, the more you veer away from camp. And, if your movie cost nine figures like this one did … Personally, I loved the cheesiness of Total Recall (1990), but Paul Verhoeven could get away with that level of ridiculousness over two decades ago and still make back twice its budget domestically. On that note, I will say that I kind of wish they cast Michael Ironside in the part of Kruger. He would have killed that role, KILLED! |
| Elysium |
Box Office Prospects
Sony moving Elysiumfrom the Spring to the dumping ground that is August didn’t express much confidence in the director’s highest profile effort to date. Filmed two years ago, the follow-up has a budget over three times the size of its predecessor, though they do share the same opening weekend now. However, District 9 managed to make its budget back and then some in its first three days of release, going onto score $115M and a Best Picture nomination. Does Blomkamp have the fan base to even match that number? I have no idea. And, it’s hard for me to remember District 9 to draw a comparison quality-wise (I could barely get through it, not that was a judgment of its quality). This August, it faces other competition from sequels to newish hits like Kick Ass, 300, Percy Jackson, and The Smurfs. The month seems to be for franchise where the plume has been prematurely taken off the rose. While there are August releases that have broken $200M (The Bourne Ultimatum, Signs, Rush Hour 2), they’re relatively few. Science Fiction of Elysium’s magnitude does not generally find success at the end of the summer. If the reviews are favorable and critics and audiences sign on to this like District 9, the $150M range seems feasible. But, honestly, I don’t see this outperforming District 9, and if it does, marginally so. I was happy that District 9 did well, thought it wasn’t my cup of tea. If fans can make this movie a hit, I say all the power to them. There are much worse things out there that make money and I want to believe that Blomkamp’s heart is in the right place.
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| Foster greets Academy members; just kidding |
Early Oscar Chances
I do remember District 9 being kind of cheesy, but I didn’t care for the way said cheese was delivered. Still, Oscar was up in its grill. But, there are many levels of ridiculousness in Elysium I’m not sure Oscar will be able to reconcile. Art Direction (Philip Ivey who did District 9), Visual Effects, and the sound categories at a maximum as far as consideration, I’d say. I suppose Best Picture, Original Screenplay, and Editing (Julian Clarke nominated for District 9) could be in play, but it seems highly doubtful. One thing you can say about Blomkamp is that he uses a lot of the same actors and crew (cinematographer Trent Opaloch) and is loyal that way. Other talent includes composer Ryan Amon and costume designer April Ferry (nominated for Maverick—which I didn’t realize received any kind of recognition—starring Jodie Foster!).
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