Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, William Fichtner
Directed By: Neill Blomkamp

When your big directorial debut is District 9, its really hard to live up to that. District 9 was an incredible film, it was daringly original, and deserves to be remembered as such. Elysium, in a weird way, feels like an unofficial sequel to District 9. It’s just not as good as District 9. Not that it doesn’t have a ton of original ideas, it’s just not as well executed. Blomkamp was given a larger budget, and higher expectations, and he just delivered an OK followup instead of a brilliant one. Elysium isn’t terrible. It’s just like expecting Dark Chocolate, and instead getting plan Milk Chocolate. There’s nothing wrong with it… it just could have been better.

Elysium is plagued by a bizarre accent from Sharlto Copley, making him hard to understand at times, yet Matt Damon’s character is void of accent. Jodie Foster has picked up some bizarre accent as well, yet other people in Elysium don’t speak the same way as her. Accents are this movies biggest downfall. If Matt Damon’s character wasn’t shown growing up in the same slums as everyone else, it would make sense that he wouldn’t have an accent. Unfortunately, this is his home. He speaks American. It’s also Alice Braga’s home, yet she clearly has a Hispanic accent. So does Diego Luna. The lack of continuity is bothersome, but it becomes irritating when I can’t understand Copely, who has the strongest accent in the film.

The film also takes a long time to get going. There’s a lot of setup, and we don’t really feel the action moving until at least the halfway point. The rest is about a class struggle, and the feeling of inequality. Matt Damon had a personal chef for this movie, when he probably should have had a dialect coach to make him sound like someone else in the movie. Kudos to allowing there to be complications and not just use the healing machines for every downed character in the film. I was worried that this would become a problem for the plot, but it seems as though there are some conditions the machines can’t fix.

Overall, I was just a little disappointed by Elysium. I thought it started slow, but picked up the pace. I also had problems with the accents. I do appreciate the originality in the script, and the attempt at trying something different. Instead, it felt like Blomkamp was just trying to continue his District 9 universe with a larger budget and a well known lead.

FINAL GRADE: B-