By now, you may already have watched the trailer for Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium more than once (if not, feel free to correct that with the player below). You may also have seen the poster and some stills from the movie that arrived earlier. Now welcome a few new pics, which include Matt Damon looking ripped and Sharlto Copley looking dangerous. We’d warn anyone with sensitive Prawns to scoot them from the room before enlargifying the Copley one.
Elysium takes place in 2154, where the super-rich live in luxury aboard the eponymous space station. There, cancer can be cured and crime is but a memory, with Jodie Foster’s sniffy leader overseeing the apparent utopia.
For Matt Damon’s Max, life is much tougher. He survives on the ruined, war-ridden Earth where his job is literally killing him. To solve his medical ills, and to help others, he’ll have to break into Elysium – which is no easy task at the best of times, and particularly not with Copley’s lethal black ops security man on his trail…
“We wanted Max to look a certain way so I had to keep up a workout regimen,” Damon tells Entertainment Weekly. He has also had to deal with a technologically advanced “hulk-suit” that makes him – on screen, at least – stronger and faster. In reality? It was a struggle. “It’s kind of like wearing one of those old Bo Jackson weight vests,” says Damon. “It’s really insidious trying to carry extra weight even if you’re in shape. You just really need a pretty strong core or you can get injured pretty easily, particularly at my age.”
The film finally hits cinemas on September 20. Meanwhile, check out our report on the early footage that played Comic-Con last year.