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Matt Damon is Johnny Mnemonic Elysium (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Elysium (109 minutes) lacked nuance. After delivering a subtly metaphorical story in District 9, director Neil Blomkamp throws delicacy out the window with this ham-fisted, heavy-handed sophomore effort. Since he both directed and wrote, it is hard to know where he went wrong. Did he drain the life out of a passable script with bad directing? Or, did he write a bad script that ended up passable through his skillful direction? Either way, the film limped along with just a few cool parts, and then ended with a whimper. In the year 2154 the class-divided world envisioned in Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto is a reality. The bourgeoisie rule from on high in a climate-controlled space paradise called Elysium. They have apparently limitless resources, and they have foolishly left the proletariat on Earth with no hope of social advancement. While anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of sociology, psychology, economics or political science would be well aware that desperate people do desperate things, the wealthy inhabitants of the space spa are happy to ignore the risk of class warfare. There were many places in the film where the possibility of social mobility could have been mentioned in order to explain the lack of daily riots. But no, not even a reference to some kind of lottery system to give the underclass hope of ascension. Blomkamp didn't even show some of the riots that would inevitably occur under this sort of oppression. The director insists his film is meant to portray the reality of today's world and not his vision of the future, but his failure to depict any of the wealthy with even the slightest compassion for the poor sort of undercut his story. As we begin, several shuttles of illegals attempt to penetrate Elysium airspace so they can sprint to the nearest house, break in and use the automated medical labs that are standard issue. Mostly, these shuttles get blown up. Sometimes one will make it, and one or two people will avoid capture long enough to get healed before deportation. Gosh, these machines that can sometimes bring the dead back to life gust 17th ~ All Day Tea for 2 edible flavors of loose leaf tea ecialty treat with your tea About Large Groups! even if their faces are blown off in a huge explosion must be pretty expensive and very rare. Of course, those rich enough to afford them would use them sparingly so as not to break them. What's that? There are plenty of them, and the rich are just jerks? Well, if the entire population of Earth suddenly had access to these machines it would cause the already fragile ecosystem of an overpopulated planet to completely collapse due to the explosive numbers of people suddenly not dying, so limited access makes sense. A high-ranking Elysian government official, Jessica Delacourt (Jodie Foster) is called on the carpet for her trigger-happy defense of Elysium airspace by the President (Faran Tahir), though what he is president of is unclear. She responds with some entitled nonsense and proceeds to laugh evilly and plan a coup. To that end, she conspires with Armadyne CEO John Carlyle (William Fichtner). He and his decorative facial implants represent the evils of corporate America. But wait! Carlyle, who is so privileged that middle management can't even breathe in his direction, messes with the wrong prole when he shakes his head dismissively in the direction of Max da Costa (Matt Damon). A plan is hatched to download Elysium access codes from Carlyle's head into da Costa's head, just like in Johnny Mnemonic. Overall, not a terrible film. Just not as good as it should have been. Honestly, if you remember those analogy questions from your SAT's think of it this way: Elysium is to Wacky Liberals as Atlas Shrugged is to Wacky Conservatives. If anyone has some time on their hands, it would be interesting, and probably hilarious, to edit all the underclass background actors from Elysium over the 99 percent depicted in Atlas Shrugged. Now showing at Wynnsong HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upandMarket Fair 15. comingweekly.com. Your Community Handbook offee House & Bakery VOLUME 16 FEBRUARY 9-15, ISSUE 06 News, Views, Arts and Entertainment. 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