Elysium

Elysium

Elysium is at one point disappointing and at the other it is fine. It's a Dystopia which does not look like it could be too far away from the present. The longer you think about it, Elyisum already happens everywhere, and Neill Blomkamp is a South African native, so it becomes clear, that the message is about poverty and money in the future. The difficulty making such a future logic and scientifically well, is obvious, and it is not completely convincing. There lies the main problem of a sci-fi movie. You make either a starwarsy fairy tale or you have to make it very, very believable like the director's much acclaimed "District 9".

Plotwise it reminded me of "Wall-E" (which was better), "Oblivion", "Escape from NY" and some anime type plots . The story was very predictable from the beginning and for my taste, it could have been made completely PG 18 in terms of violence, to make it darker and more grim. Now, it looks a bit indecisive. The actors were fine, especially the less known, like Copley, Luna and Moura. Jodie Foster is great here, reminded me a bit of Tilda Swintons performance in "Michael Clayton". Matt Damon is a good actor, but he's a bit overused lately. In comparison to "Pacific Rim" it's clear, why the audience is more happy with Del Toros skyscraper-style movie: it's pure entertainment, reality is far away and the violence is very mild - you hate it or you love it.

To sum it up, I was well entertained by this. I liked the strong hints of real present problems. I disliked the predictable way the story unfolds, the overall mixture of action and violence and some illogic details. I definitely want to see more movies by Blomkamp and so it gets my 7.0.

* No middle class just poor v rich.

* Enslavement but not quite. Society is run by a combination of warlords and CEOs. Zero political consciousness.

* Gig economy assassins. But even they live in squalor.

* Cyberpunk + trash aesthetic. Iraq war aesthetic across the whole world.

* Nothing works because why would you want it to, when you're stuck below? Meanwhile super advanced microchips.

* The robots while they don't violate Asimov's principles, they're really passive-aggressive and catty.

* The ghetto robot interface surgery. High tech microchip heists. Hacker culture is the one thing that did advance but they're limited by seemingly 1980s computers they have to scrap together.

* The comedy of Matt Damon's leading man stoicism reacting to all of this zaniness, demoralization, and hopelessness.

* (The big thing the film is missing a VR component to make life bearable below, giving some people the sedative illusion of a false Elysium. Like... WHAT IF you could wear a goggle over your eyes that shows the same busted up world except everything is green and beautiful, and everyone has deepfake smiles.)

* Most interesting is the poor v rich spend all their time plotting and fending each other off. Consider the discomfort that both their views are each other.

* Dysgenics on Elysium. Ie, it's not the geniuses who built Elysium but their grandkids who grew up there ruling it, making its destruction inevitable. 'Good times create weak men' etc...

* There is still spiritual consciousness but only below.

* Above is no utopia. They are not particularly more educated or gifted, but susceptible to primitive coups, corruption, bureaucracy. You kind of feel bad for them as being born there is being trapped, they're unprepared for any sort of reality.

* Opposite down below the most resilient survive and scrap by through friendship and brotherhood. Creates some kind of American revolution feeling.

I feel that there should be a series with this universe that explores the down vs up, because they struck prophetic gold on the whole thing. Plus it is epic. The flaws that were glaring back in 2013 feel minor compared to how incredible the production and concept is.

After director Neill Blomkamp's fantastic debut film District 9 I was understandably eager to see his new sci-fi film Elysium. Unfortunately his second feature doesn't quite match up with the greatness that was District 9.

Visually the film is quite stunning and it has some great cinematography when it comes to the larger shots. The CGI effects are excellent and blend in well with the environment. The Earth of the film looks very gritty, believable and lived-in and the space station Elysium has this very sterile and futuristic look to it. You could really buy it that Earth could look like this with many decades of neglect and poverty. Everything's in disrepair and in decline. The rich on the other hand have every resource available to them in their own little paradise in space. The set and production designers truly did a great job with the locations.

Matt Damon is decent as the film's protagonist Max who is an ex-con now working on assembling the droids which keep order on the now overpopulated Earth. His role and the writing of his character isn't anything too special or memorable but he does what he can with it. He's just a no nonsense guy who is thrown into a difficult situation. He was also quite sarcastic and funny when he was dealing with the droids in the earlier part of the film but we didn't see this side of him at all after that. Alice Braga plays Max's childhood friend Frey with whom Max meets up again when he's an adult. I didn't feel much of an emotional connection or chemistry between them though and that hampered the film a bit. Their back story is told almost completely in sentimental flashback sequences which I didn't care for. The antagonists in this film were very one-dimensional and over the top. Jodie Foster plays Elysium's defense minister Delacourt and Sharlto Copley (who was also in District 9) plays an undercover agent named Kruger who is positioned on Earth. They're both very cliché and uninteresting. The writing of all the characters wasn't very good at all in this film and I didn't get emotionally invested in any of them.

The story isn't that great either and this then also takes away from the film's many action sequences because we don't have that big a stake in them. The film starts quite strongly as it juxtaposes the situation on Earth and on Elysium to highlight the problems of social and economic inequality. Then suddenly when the action starts, these issues fade far in to the background in favor of more and more action. From the trailers and the hype I really got this impression that the film would deal with these issues in a thoughtful manner. Regrettably this is not the case with this film. A big problem with the film is also that none of the characters seems to learn anything new or change their beliefs or anything like that. A huge part of the success of District 9 was in seeing how the main character evolved after spending some time with the aliens. In Elysium the good guys are the good guys and bad guys are the bad guys. There's no complexity, nuance or subtlety in any of them. We also don't get to meet any other citizens of Elysium beside the higher up leaders like defense minister Delacourt and president Patel. It would've been interesting to see the common people of Elysium and how they react to the situation, what their beliefs are and what drives them. The writing is also a little too pointed out and heavy-handed. Some of it just made me think "Wow, really?". For example, at one point the CEO of the droid production company literally tells some mid-level manager not to breathe at his direction. Things also seem to happen way too conveniently to push the plot along. Then again you could say this about many films but you really start to pay attention to these things when you're not completely engrossed in the film. This film surely would've benefited from a more subtle approach. The ending was also way too simplistic for my taste.

The action in this film is quite intense and it looks very impressive at times. The exoskeletons were fun and looked convincing. Then comes the shaky cam. Oh boy. It's really quite annoying and very often it's hard to see what's going on. They should've really taken a page from the Bourne movies on how to shoot action scenes. Luckily the shaky cam isn't there all the time but the action could've definitely been improved with a clearer shooting style.

All in all, the film has decent action with absolutely gorgeous visuals and it moves along at a good pace. Sadly the writing, the plot and the characters aren't that interesting and it's hard to get emotionally invested in this film. It's watchable and probably quite entertaining if you're in the proper mood for it. For me, the film ultimately left me a bit cold and disappointed.

This sort of thing is already happening on earth, and has been for a long time, the wealthy elite fencing themselves off from the poorer in society, and hoarding all the wealth for themselves. So this is a very real possibility.

The film is excellent, with great performances from Matt Damon and Sharlto Copley in particular, Jodie Foster is good if somewhat unused, as is William Fichtner, heavily using CGI though, but it looks very realistic CGI.

Well directed and paced, and action scenes done well, overall a very good Sci-Fi movie.

The current 6.6 average rating seems a bit low to me, it is worth an 8 out of 10 at least.

ELYSIUM is a bitter-sweet social commentary that uses brutal allegories to reiterate the alarming rate at which socio-economic and geo-political ties are disintegrating all over the planet. As a follow up to the thought provoking and thoroughly entertaining DISTRICT 9 (2009), South African writer-director Neill Blomkamp's latest offering is yet another visionary parable to mull over. And while the first half is a frightening impression of the future of humanity, the second half feels rushed and diluted. Even so, the film has a lot to offer in terms of visual effects and explosive action.

Although Blomkamp's narrative begins in a dystopian future set in 2154, the story has a modern day setting that uses current events in cleverly hidden metaphors. Consider the following facts: The French Revolution that led to the execution of the monarchy; Derogatory sentiments deriding Android phones as "ghetto" products; Fatalities of illegal immigrants on route to greener pastures; The prospect of space tourism that only the super-rich can afford. Now imagine in the not too distant future, the extremely wealthy live on a pristine space station where state-of-the-art health care prevents people from premature death. The remaining ninety-nine percent of the population are left to suffer on the diseased, polluted and over populated planet we call Earth. Thus begins Blomkamp's setup where the premise is a thematic and often desperate struggle for equality. Amongst Earth's 'ghetto' population, blue-collar worker Max Da Costa (Matt Damon) has always dreamt of shortening the ever widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. Now diseased and dying, the only means of rejuvenating his health lies aboard the titular space station. But preventing Max from leaving Earth is Elysium's iron-fisted Secretary of Defense Jessica Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her rogue agent - the terrifying and almost psychotic Kruger (Sharlto Copley).

Where Blomkamp excels is in presenting a bleak scenario that is not only plausible but also discomforting. Considering the real world disparity between man-made utopias and an unfed infant in so called 'third world countries', it becomes all the more unsettling that this story is not entirely make believe. This is precisely what gives ELYSIUM a powerful yet thought provoking backdrop. All else, from gritty action sequences to the CGI built paradise in space benefits from the current going rate in Hollywood. On the other hand, character development leaves much to be desired. Two-time Academy Award winning Foster is either miscast or given very little to work with, but definitely my biggest disappointment in this film. There is simply no punch in what appears to be her first antagonistic role. Foster shares this downside with William Fichtner, another underrated actor whose talents are wasted in what should have been a key role. Thankfully, Damon and Copley make up for any noticeable lapse in the acting department. Together, their characters portray the fickle polarity of the human nature while also providing the film's testosterone fuelled action, including scenes of intense shootouts and sudden blood splatter.

In a year that coughed up quite a few sci-fi films, with some even treading into apocalyptic territory, ELYSIUM stands on firm ground as a film that tackles social issues head-on. And while this film is far from perfect, there are ample reasons why this film is still worth a trip to the cinema.