Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp's 2013 film Elysium, starring Matt Damon, and the Aaron Eckhart actioner Battle: Los Angeles are underrated sci-fi gems.
The Big Picture In the streaming era, movies come and go with alarming speed. Consequently, some movies are still looking for an audience even several years after their initial release. But these films — Elysium and Battle: Los Angeles — deserve to be rediscovered and enjoyed by a new generation of cinema lovers.
Despite the name of the movie, most of the story takes place on Earth. More specifically, it unfolds in Los Angeles, as Matt Damon’s Max Da Costa toils in a dead end factory job while dreaming of a better life in Elysium. In this grim vision of the future, robotic cops brutalize Max and anyone else who challenges their power structure. Meanwhile, android parole officers offer no empathy at all to Max and other former criminals.
Elysium has a very bleak view of the future, and by extension, the past as well. But Blomkamp’s story offers just enough hope to keep it from being overwhelming. It’s not a pretty look at who we are as a society, or what we might become. Yet it is a compelling allegory, with a touch of optimism that things could improve if humanity can embrace its better nature.
That choice allowed the aliens of Battle: Los Angeles to be even more terrifying than many previous cinematic invaders. Educated guesses are made about the aliens’ motives within the film, but they are simply guesses. The only thing we know for sure is that the aliens seem intent on systematically wiping out humanity with a methodical approach to decimating both the military and civilian populations.
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