Sharlto Copley is definitely the new
villain on the block. After he mesmerised us with his performance as Wikus Van
Der Merwe in Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, our local boytjie yet again gives
the ‘ous’ stick in Hollywood, this time as ‘Agent Kruger’, a sleeper agent back
on Earth operating on behalf of the government of the newly formed terra-planet:
Elysium.
The intensity with which he portrays
his character is nothing short of brilliant and never before have the words
‘kak’ and ‘lekker’ sounded this good in a movie. As for the accent for his character, he
chose one originating from the south of Jo’burg.
Usually what we hear in cinemas when
it comes to South Africa is English spoken with an Afrikaans accent. This time
it’s the other way around. Not only is his character one of the meanest and fearsome mercenary-like agents ever, he also commands heaps of
presence, at times unintentionally upstaging his fellow cast members,
especially Jodie Foster during one of their scenes together.
The story of Elysium centers around an
interesting concept. More than ever before our world is being divided between
the classes and lifestyles of rich and poor. Let’s say for a minute
this societal sickness persist into the future, the year 2159
to be exact, what kind of a world will be left?
In this movie, the super rich have all
the means and privileges to save only themselves, like they usually do, using
their financial power to set up a new world called, Elysium. If you are born
on Earth, you are predisposed to poverty, and that instantly disqualifies you from ever reaching their world. How ironic. And although this engineered world of
theirs possesses all the necessary means to bring about great change for their
fellow man, they refuse to share it. 
When Max (Matt Damon), a former
convict, accidentally receives a lethal dose of radiation at the
robot-manufacturing plantation he works at, getting to Elysium and the
medical technology they possess literally becomes a matter of life and death.
It also means he has to go back and join forces with the people he at one time decided to abandon and asking them for their help in getting there.
The local Warlord agrees to take him to Elysium
if Max can steal financial information from the CEO of the company he used to
work at. What he ends up stealing is far more than just financial intel, but in
fact a program that can override Elysium’s central computer system, granting
the owner of such information the power to decide who rules the new colony and
who lives there or not.
There are lots of action in this
sci-fi/action-thriller of Blomkamp's and he once again shows us he has the
ability to envision stories that resonate with profound societal core issues,
but does so in a fresh and original way.
If anything, Elysium leaves you
realising that there is no cure for hypocrisy and if we ever thought that running away from the issues we face here by going to a new world will be one, then we have it wrong. It's hypocrisy that drove you there in the first
place.
A new world won’t change anything for us if we don’t change ourselves and the way we live on the one we currently possess.
Elysium is currently showing on local cinemas.
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