Elysium Motion Poster May Induce Futuristic Seizures
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Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium comes out in less than a month, on August 9—mark it on your calendars if you haven’t already—plenty of time to dig out from beneath the pile of leftover Pacific Rim marketing. Since we’re in the final countdown to his District 9 follow up, we’ve been seeing more and more marketing material for the allegorical sci-fi adventure. This includes a new, potentially seizure inducing motion poster.
I’m not technologically adept enough to figure out how to embed said poster, but click over to Movifone where it originates to take a gander. You get to see a bunch of quick action hits from the film, all superimposed over a picture of a stern looking Max (Matt Damon), getting ready to kick some ass. Sure, looking at this may cause some undue eyestrain, maybe a mild headache, but it’s totally worth it in the end.
In the future, the year 2154, Earth has been so damaged and screwed up that those who can afford it leave, abandoning the rugged surface in favor of a safe, clean space station called Elysium that orbits their former home. It’s a lot like the suburbs for people who want to get even further from the inner city than a land of white picket fences. Those who can’t pay the tab are forced to remain where they were, a dystopian, poverty stricken, disease ridden, crime infested dump where it’s impossible to get ahead, no matter how hard you try. It’s a bleak existence.
This world rife with class struggle and oppression is definitely fertile territory for Blomkamp to work with his favored heavy political themes, and this is precisely where Max finds himself. After getting busted for stealing cars, he’s trying to go straight, but the day job, and the robot overlords crush his spirit a little more each day. When an accident at work decreases his life expectancy to mere days, Max is driven to desperate measures. You’d have to be despondent to have a big metal exoskeleton drilled into you bones, no matter how cool it looks, or how badass it makes you. But he does. I also doubt the cleanliness of the surgical facilities.
See, they have medical technology on Elysium that could easily save him, and that would drastically improve the overall quality of life on Earth. With his new powers, Max is ready to storm this modern ivory tower, and take something back for the common folk. That’s all well and good, but you know it can’t be nearly as easy as it sounds, though it sure does look like a good time for us.
Elysium opens in IMAX August 9, and also stars Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, and William Fitchner.
