If Neill Blomkamp isn’t careful, he’s going to be forever
remembered as a writer-director of allegorical science fiction. Not that that’s
necessarily a bad thing, but remember M. Night Shyamalan survived for a handful
of films being known for doing something very specific and then became so
hamstrung by a sense of his own greatness that his films became, one after
another, more absurd and awful than the last. If District 9 was Blomkamp’s take on apartheid South Africa and
immigration, Elysium is not just about
a guy trying to illegally enter a forbidden and exclusive paradise to cure
himself of fatal radiation exposure. Working on a larger scale and with a
bigger budget, Blomkamp hasn’t lost sight of what makes a good movie work:
namely good characters and story. He’s also made another technically sound
piece of entertainment that puts most of the other big releases to shame. A
coherently edited and structured movie? Who greenlit this thing? I’m almost
shocked this sort of thing is allowed to pass muster.
