Elysium

[Dilusha Bandara]

Elysium wasn't bad! Damon gives a characteristically performance. Blomkamp generously spares us the kind of tedious exposition of how Elysium works. For an example why its atmosphere doesn't float away. And the FX are the best of the year so far, but till Gravity comes. His writing isn't the best, but he's proven again that, he is a visual filmmaker! 8/10

[The Stingray]

Elysium didn't deserve to only make 30m this weekend. Visually its the most spectacular movie I've seen this year. Hopefully it'll have good legs.

[Ezen Baklattan]

Foster was almost cartoonish in her disdain for those 'lower class swine.'

[Deep Wang]

I've already almost forgotten the whole movie already.

 

What a disappointment. 

[Ezen Baklattan]

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing and it's where the movie's message on universal health care completely falls apart. It would be one thing if they could only produce a limited amount of magical healing machines...but when they have enough to treat the world population? It's simply unconscionable that any group of people, no matter what economic class they find themselves in, would restrict them when they have no reason to. Or...they did have a reason and it's cold but practical: a form of population control.

 

Seriously this is a planet that is overpopulated. It is so overpopulated that wealthy people built a spaceship so that they could have some space. We never get a population figure but I imagine it's way too high to properly fix a lot of the problems facing said society. So what do you do when you give them access to machines that cures them all and significantly slows down aging? You just increased the life expectancy of everyone by decades. In other words, the overpopulated Earth is going to face even MORE overpopulation as the death rate significantly goes down. Congrats: they just made the problem way worse.

 

It's not like moving them to Elysium is the answer either since I doubt that the station would be able to handle a quarter of the Earth's population. Even then, the more you crowd it...the more it defeats the whole purpose of having a station.

 

Spider and Max just ironically fucked everything up worse.

It also makes you wonder, if any ailment on Elysium can be cured, that would have also significantly reduced mortality rates, and allowed more people to be born. Wouldn't Elysium become overpopulated as well?

[Gopher]

I like what Indiewire says about the ending, because like Water Bottle said, it undermines the whole film: 

 

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/robots-spaceships-and-jodie-foster-the-good-the-bad-and-the-wildly-uneven-of-elysium-20130812?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&page=3#blogPostHeaderPanel

 

 

The ending is certainly by the numbers, intercutting and concluding multiple threads while Ryan Amon’s score thumps triumphantly.  It’s also a logistical nightmare, sacrificing common sense for the sake of illogical emotional outpouring that feels satisfying in the moment but begins to crumble before the “Directed By” credit even flashes on screen. Blomkamp, who also penned the script, is seemingly content to ignore the countless complexities that beset this new world – for example, what’s to stop a criminal organization from hijacking one of the healing ships touching down on Earth and utilizing it as a private enterprise? Why hasn’t some Elysium entrepreneur been exploiting the med-pods on earth to get rich all along? What happens to Elysium now? What will be solved by indeterminably prolonging the lives of people living in shoebox shanties on a polluted, dying Earth? The ending offers a poignant triumph, but it feels unearned at best and nonsensical at worst.

[DeeCee]

I'm in the disappointed camp as well. Early on a number of little things just bugged me and took me out of the movie. Earth just seemed to much like D9. It was stupid and pointless having the young Max be an illiterate native Spannish speaker and then jump straight to the old Damon with a a regular American accent. The robot cops just seemed too randomly oppressive just to progress the plot. Although having Johnny Cab be his parole officer was kind of cool. Jodie Foster speaking in random accents and languages. Also, if her character is the Defence Secretary why wouldn't she know whether or not her President had kids? If only more thought had been put into the script. There was potential here for a much better film.

[DeeCee]

I also have to question the physics of having Elysium open to space.

[somebody85]

This movie was a mess.It definitely sports the best visuals of the summer and Matt Damon gives a decent perfermance, but that is all I can say that is postive about it. It was like a Sci-Fi version of The Purge. It's another movie with a really intriguing idea that gives glimpses of it's potential, but never really explores it.

 

Things happen.. just because. It's never explained how Max learns to use the exoskeleton.The main villian kind of just shows up at the beginning with no backstory for why he's doing what he's doing. And his motivation switch towards the end was completely eye rolling. Certain character arcs only appear when the plot needs them too. Jodie Foster plays a completely useless character and delives some awful acting. The key to completely override Elysium, is conveniently in one billionaires head that just happens to own the company Max works for.  And once you're in Elysiums mainframe, to overide it is as simple as typing in one word. Great securty to protect your spacestation guys...

 

I also never bought Maxs motivation to sacrifice himeself after saying "I don't want to die" or "I'm not dying" multiple times in the script because of a story the little girl tells him. I get that he saw himself in her with the flashback but it still felt completely forced.

 

The world building could have been expanded greatly because that's some of the strongest parts of the movie. You can see skyscrapers still standing in LA but we never leave the shacks. We are also supposed to believe this one ship (which holds the villian) can completely moniter this giant area but isn't advanced enough to pick up the heat signature of a person if he hides under an animal.

 

We also get very few shots of the outside of Elysium that were not in the trailer. Everything else involving Elysium including the finale takes place in a corrider or a factory.The movie just didn't hit the way it was supposed to, and like others have pointed out the ending makes no sense if it was all about over population to begin with. It has some cool ideas about the 1% (even though it is a little ham fisted at times) but forgets about them pretty quickly. It's definitely not that smart of a movie and quickly becomes generic once things start going. Big meh overall...

 

C

Edited August 13, 2013 by somebody85

[RobinHood26]

I think Max is like every person, of course he keeps saying he doesn't want to die. At the end he is not deing to save the girl, he is dying to save everyone. It's a noble choice that I like to think me and 90% of the people on earth world also do after learning the circumstances and depth of the situation.

[Michael Gary Scott]

Thought it was a pretty average movie. 3/5.

[MovieGuyKyle17]

Elysium is a very simple story of the have's and have not's. The film has some pretty good performances from Damon and Foster. By the way, was it just me or was Foster speaking a little different?? Anyway the actor who comes out shining is Sharlto Copley. His performance as the villain is top notch. The effects are great and look beautiful on the big screen. Now I do wish the film explored Elysium a little more, it would of been cool to learn a bit more about the creation of this place. The lack of character depth also hurts the more emotion parts of the movie. For most of the characters, your interested in them but if they died at any moment, you would be like "O well that sucks". All in all Elysium is a pretty good movie that could of been great.

Grade: B+

[The Futurist]

You are funny Baumer, you berate TDKR constantly for its plot holes yet you  like Elysium whose plotholes are Wormholes sized.

[The Futurist]

It's a step down from D9 in a way that tells me Blomkamp needs a writing partner next time. It's decently entertaining, the concept is good and the action beats (when I could tell what was going on- darn you, shaky-cam) are as solid as ever, but there's not enough to Damon or the mother/daughter to really root for their quest (the presence of a guy as empathetic as Wikus in District 9 is sorely needed). Even Copley's crazy villain isn't as fun as he should be because there's no motivation behind him- we don't even understand why he's involved with Elysium in the first place. A lot is introduced and left unfinished, thus the movie kind of sits there. 

 

One big question: there were tons of envoys carrying the magic beds stored in Elysium that are immediately sent to Earth at the end of the movie. Why weren't these envoys sent down to Earth a long time ago? It really seemed like no big deal when they were sent. Who made the decision to keep them in space? It's hard to believe none of the 1% who live on Elysium were empathetic enough to provide any meaningful health care to the billions left on Earth. 

 

This movie was plothole 101, putting TDKR to shame.

[JonnyCraig]

Eh. Cliched plotting and Foster was awful but the world-building and Damon's likability won me over. B-

[acsc1312]

Lmao @ Jodie foster's accent changing every scene. There were some parallel storylines from D9, but I liked it quite a but. Great camerawork.B+/A-

[lab276]

Decent effort. Sharlto Copley's character was superfluous and weak on the whole. And yeah, I don't understand why they were so anal about not giving anyone on earth access to the med-pod.B

[Blankments]

Movie is disappointing coming off of District 9, but it's still decent. Copley is easily the highlight, and Damon seems a bit miscast. The action is very fun too, although it got me wondering if Matt Damon is the king of shaky cam. My issue was how blatant the allegory was compared to District 9. The film was fine besides that, but it was a big issue. C+

Edited September 1, 2013 by Blankments

[vc2002]

Decent effort. Sharlto Copley's character was superfluous and weak on the whole. And yeah, I don't understand why they were so anal about not giving anyone on earth access to the med-pod.

B

 

WUT?

[baumer]

You are funny Baumer, you berate TDKR constantly for its plot holes yet you  like Elysium whose plotholes are Wormholes sized.

 

There are not big plot holes.  The problem with Elysium is what would have after it's over.  No one is Elysium is dousing an entire building with gas in the middle of the night and then lighting it on fire and asking us all to pretend that they were invisible when doing it.