Elysium!!!!

Elysium.

I have to say this is a film that has been speculated ever since director Neil Blomkamp's released his first major film 'District 9' which was to be highly rated by critics at it's take in the future. With people speculating that this film was a sequel to District 9 and then some saying it was a prequel, speculations quashed it was announced to be an entirely new story. 

Set in the future we see how the rich and the poor are divided, the poor living in the squalor on Earth and the rich living on a huge floating space station called Elysium. With humans living in the poorest of conditions day to day it is a battle to survive and obviously soon enough something has to happen to make the people snap. With the rich living on Elysium everything is perfect for them, clear skies, good food, instant "medi-pods" to instantly heal people, their lives are perfect. 

As we enter the we see how a simple worker Max (Matt Damon) works for weapons manufacturer and soon enough is caught in a radiation chamber and is given five days to live. So his only option to live is to get himself to Elysium and to one of the medi-pod's so he can be cured of his radiation. This idea he needs friends in high places, deciding to do a favour for a black market friend Spider (Wagner Moura) Max is giving a metal enhancing suit that will make him stronger, faster and more powerful in exchange for hijacking a executive of Elysium who lives on Earth and stealing some information off him via his brain. 

With Max deciding to take on this task he is up against a formidable foe as the head of Elysium Delacourt (Jodie Foster) sends her best mercenary Kruger (Sharlto Copley) to take him out once and for all. As Max and his fellow crew try to get to Elysium certain situations change and the group are even more desperate to get to Elysium but will they make it there?

This film does feel like the best of this years major sci-fi releases, Oblivion and After Earth being these other two films released this year. Elysium just feels more relate able and something that is not confined to just two or three characters as you have a whole race of people relying on these renegade people wanting to change and stop the social split on Earth. The whole idea and premise is great, poor VS the rich and how they are both split morally is clever and really brings that urge inside you to side with one or the other. 

Matt Damon is a great character but to me he just isn't too grounded, obviously he's not a fighting character like we've seen from Jason Bourne he's just a normal guy trying to do good. Sharlto Copley is the polar opposite of his character in District 9 as he plays a psychopathic mercenary and has some interesting ways to take people out. Jodie Foster just comes across as a little bit too cold and doesn't show too much emotion but then again her character is a stern faced executive so she has to be like that.

A great and really enjoyable sci-fi film that really does make you think about the whole social class system that we have in the world and how it could end up being in future years. The special effects are impressive and There are certain things I'd like to have seen like a bit more time spent on Elysium and maybe another character thread involving someone from Elysium and their views on people of Earth. Copley's South African is thick and at times can grate but it doesn't matter as he's a more physical character. 

For a film set in the future it scarily shows a realistic view of what the future might be and the way things could go with a massive social split. Thought provoking and definitely entertaining.

8/10.