Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium"... First Images and What Not

Class warfare seems to be the theme of the day whether it is real life or that of Hollywood productions, so it should come to no surprise that the Sci-Fi genre is going to follow suit with Matt Damon’s new flick “Elysium”.

The film centers around an orbital space station named -surprisingly, Elysium- where the rich seem to live the life as they always have for centuries, while they orbit around the an apocalyptic 22nd century diseased ridden Earth. Damon plays the central character Max, an ex-con who is trying to get up to the space station because he is dying, and he is given a mission that will, hopefully, not only save his life but equality to the world and people as a whole.

“Elysium” Also stars Jodie Foster as Secretary Rhodes, an evil and twisted government official that will stop at nothing to enforce Elysium’s anti-immigration laws and so in effect keeping the luxurious lifestyles that the rich have come accustom too… oh, yes, the have-nots so want to be part of the haves.

Sound familiar?

It should, also, come to no surprise that “Elysium” was written and directed by “District 9’s” Neill Blomkamp who based a lot of that film on the way the South African government treated blacks and Apartheid. So, I believe, a lot of what “Elysium” rings with is Arizona and their immigration laws (and I believe a lot of Secretary Rhodes’ character can be said comes from Arizona’s governor). After reading the over-all plot synopsis, it seems that we have been down this route of sociopolitical ideas before (Think George Romero’s zombie films, “Escape from New York” (John Carpenter), even that of the “Resident Evil” franchise, to name a few).

Do we need another film like this? One that appears to be -a much better and grittier, but sort of the same premise- “Judge Dredd” meets “Total Recall” retread? I don’t know about you but I for one is getting a little tired of it. But it might be fun to see Matt Damon back to a grittier, tough guy role in the realm of Bourne.

Originally slated for a March release, but it appears that it might get pushed until August.

Update April 10th, 2013

Here is the first trailer for the film. It looks it'll hit theaters on August 9th