At first glance, the plot of Neill Blomkamp’s second film, Elysium, looks a lot like that of his first, 2009’s well-received District 9. In both films, a disenfranchised, cordoned-off population struggles to survive—monitored and occasionally abused by a distrustful, prosperous elite—until a lone individual upsets the status quo. Of course, in Blomkamp’s first film, the ghettoized group are actual aliens living in a small refugee camp on the outskirts of Johannesburg. In his newest, the ghetto is Earth and its inhabitants the ruined planet’s entire resident population (with the prosperous elite living far above in a revolving space wheel of pool parties and all-curing health beds).
In place of District 9’s Wikus (Sharlto Copley), a bureaucrat who discovers his empathy and humanity even as he transforms into something most would deem monstrous, Elysium has Max (action A-lister Matt Damon), an ex-con who can’t catch a break (though he is pretty good at getting beaten, irradiated and mutilated). In both films, events spiral out of the protagonist’s control, leading to desperate decisions in an effort to survive.
But whereas District 9 was in many ways an intimate, sci-fi-coated tale of personal transformation (with action sequences), Elysium is more reupholstered fable. Max’s journey of literal transformation (and attempted transportation) plays out as more Jason Bourne or James Bond than Ellen Ripley or Rick Deckard. (Granted, in general, sci-fi films aren’t really expected to provide thought-provoking character arcs.)
In part, the difference can be explained by the bet Sony Pictures is making on Blomkamp’s sophomore effort. With a budget more than three times that of the $30 million District 9, Elysium probably needed to play bigger and less subtly than its predecessor. (Thoughtful, lo-fi sci-fi is not the stuff $300 million-grossing summer blockbusters are made of—at least not until someone makes one that does, he says, wistfully.)