From the director of the alien science-fiction movie ‘District 9’, comes another science-fiction movie about the eternal war between the rich and the poor. Just that ‘Elysium’ happens to be set in the post-apocalyptic future.
The trailer starts with showing Matt Damon’s character being questioned by a robot. Robots are all over in this trailer, doing the dirty work for the rich people in the year 2154. The poor live on a downtrodden, garbage-laden Earth while the privileged live on Elysium, a posh, clean satellite-like structure in outer space. No one from Earth can cross over to Elysium, and this is amply displayed in the ‘Elysium’ trailer when Jodie Foster’s character orders an attack on spaceships approaching Elysium. She’s a character who is not to be taken lightly.
Elysium is a place only for the rich. There is no poverty, war or disease on Elysium. In this technologically-advanced society, we see a machine curing a human of cancer while the poor earthlings live in shameful conditions. Matt Damon’s character wants to do something about this but due to an untoward accident can’t do anything until he is retrofitted with a machine by a very shady looking friend. How Matt Damon’s character goes about changing the plight of the earthlings and whether he succeeds or not is what this film is about.
Although ‘Elysium’ may be a science-fiction film first, it also concentrates on the action bits in the second half of the trailer. We see a lot of spaceship action in the atmosphere of Elysium. Sharlto Copley’s character, who plays an important law-enforcement officer-cum-goon gets lots of screentime too, especially in a fight against Matt Damon’s character.
Neill Blomkamp’s got a huge budget to play with in his sophomore film. And looks like he has made good use of it. The production design looks great with the slick look and feel of the posh Elysium contradicting the damp and dark feel of Earth. The action seems to have blown full-scale too, and we’re interested in seeing what the contraption hung on to Matt Damon’s body is.
‘Elysium’ releases in India tentatively on the Independence Day weekend this year, on 15 August, 2013.
