The Magic of Science . . . Or, Elysium Review

I saw Elysium last week.  It's taken me a while to comment on Neil Blomkamp's newest sci-fi effort for the simple reason that almost as soon as I left the theater I'd forgotten the movie.  Built around the story of Max (played by Matt Damon), it's a purposeless effort that degenerates into rambling, plotless meandering about halfway through.  Basically, after an industrial accident leaves Max with only five days to live, he sets off on a journey that will take him to Elysium, which possesses technology which can cure him. 

Visually it's a standout, if your baseline for special effects is sometime around 2001.  Everything is as gritty and solid as what you'd expect from Black Hawk Down.  I suppose that's impressive, because in this case nothing is actually real.  Green screen and computer effects abound, and are never intrusive.  This is a good thing.  The world definitely feels real, but there's no real awe in the movie.

And as far as science fiction is concerned, I'm not entirely convinced that this is movie belongs in that genre.  Though it takes place in the future, has some pretty cool tech, there's not a lot of science involved.

Let me explain.  The technology is good, and has a solid, believable feel.  But the science is entirely absent.  The physics of the Elysium hub are wonky, at best, and the medical technology is simply magic.  Apparently in this future, disease is completely eradicated and all it takes to cure even advanced cancer is to wave some sort of "healing light" over the patient's body.

This makes the movie less science fiction and more fantasy. 

It's an ongoing problem as Americans' knowledge of science becomes increasingly divorced from their technological prowess.  A two year-old can manipulate an iPad and operate the Blu-Ray player better than many adults.  Cell phones deliver constant streams of information without the operator needing to know how.  Indeed, the complex ballet of satellites, cell towers, internet trunks, operating systems, computer coding, software, hardware, etc., are totally opaque to most operators.  This makes them inexplicable.

As I've often said, we live in a magical age.  The dictum that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic applies.  The ineffable cause which lies behind the effect of your iPhone making calls and surfing the web means that you experience a sense of powerlessness.  You no longer control your own world, even as you manipulate it.

And we fear what we don't understand.

It's not surprising that conservative Republicans in the United States are pushing back against educational reforms that might actually work.  Comprised largely of the undereducated, they sense their powerlessness and inaccurately attribute it to government interference and shadowy liberal conspiracies.  Certainly, government intrusion is on the rise, and I'm certain PRISM and the NSA are getting a kick out of my ongoing ramblings.  But the real solution isn't withdrawal but increased participation in government and education.

What Elysium suggests is that the merger between corporations and governments (the two are largely indistinguishable in the movie) create uncrossable gaps between rich and power.  That gap is regularly bridged in the movie, however, so I'm not sure just what the moral of the story is supposed to be.  Even more worrying, the director fails to explain how the very limited resources of Elysium can be leveraged to cure the entire planet of its (incomprehensibly many) woes.  Every other person seems to have cerebral palsy, polio, or some other malady and the level of welfare would certainly have exhausted resources a long time ago.  (Which is probably why a very few fled Earth.  It wasn't selfishness but enlightened self-preservation.)

So as far as political statements go, it's milquetoast, and draping a science-fiction action adventure with that pale velvet means the whole movie suffers.  While it didn't suck, and I didn't feel cheated of the price of admission, it was nevertheless kind of blah.  

Wait till it comes out on Netflix.

(But, if you're in the mood for compelling science fiction that happens to also star Sharlto Copley in a supporting role, go see Europa Report.)

(And for a fun read on the actual science behind this movie, take a look at the Stanford torus.)