I am ashamed to admit that I, at first, refused to watch District 9 because the trailers made it look too scary. When I finally caved and watched it, I was shocked at how expensive it looked and how much that movie said with so little. Elysium, director Neill Blomkamp's second feature, is almost the opposite: it has SO much going for it, and it sometimes squanders much that it has...but it doesn't mean it's not a dazzling movie to watch with engaging performances, gosh-wow visuals, and a Aesop fable-like moral propelling it forward.
The year is 2154, and two classes of humans exist: those who can live in the pristine Elysium orbiting the Earth with the ability to cure themselves should they ever fall ill, and the poor, unfortunate souls who are forced to live in an impoverished, polluted, and over-populated Earth and struggle to keep healthy. Matt Damon plays Max, an ex-con who's trying to stay on the straight and narrow path by taking a job in a factory. On an exceptionally shitty day, droids pull him aside merely for being a parolee and break his arm before he heads to work, where he accidentally gets exposed to lethal radiation that will kill him in five days time. Wee! Max then decides the only way he can survive is by sneaking onto Elysium and finding himself into a magical pod that can cure him--but in order to do that, he'll have to attach a heavy duty exoskeleton thingy to himself and hijack some codes out of a Elysian's head, not knowing that said codes could change the course of history...
Also along for the ride are Jodie Foster as a diabolical Defense Secretary of Elysium (one with a SUPER questionable accent) and Sharlto Copley as a rouge sleeper agent on Earth who's gone a little batshit insane and will stop at nothing to make sure Max doesn't reach Elysium alive. Of course, it wouldn't be a summer action movie if there wasn't a dame, and Alice Braga plays Max's childhood friend who, naturally, has a dying daughter of her own.
Now, Elysium is being billed as a thinking-man's summer action film, and this is definitely an accurate statement in that there is a bunch of political agenda wrapped into a sci-fi flick about the haves and the have-nots. There is gunfire and neato gadgets and space crafts and a bunch of really cool set pieces designed by the same dude who brought you dystopia at its finest in Blade Runner, all which add up to some pretty cool shit. There are even really fun hand-to-hand fighting and some really gross things happening to body parts, and while this is all really neat and exciting, at the end it all boils down to a climax everyone with a brain (or someone who watches a shit load of movies) can see coming a mile away.
But Elysium is a fun ride, nonetheless, with a decent performance by Damon, who spends most of his time limping around or passed out when he's not fighting Copley, who is (duh) one of the best things about this film. Can he just go around playing sadistic assholes for a living, please? It's the end of a kinda disappointing movie summer, and Elysium is definitely a nice little palate cleanser even with its faults. It's a great action flick for those who don't want to read into all the political mumbo jumbo, and it's a nice change of pace for those who are currently bored of all those comic book heroes at the moment.
-- Darcie Duttweiler
The year is 2154, and two classes of humans exist: those who can live in the pristine Elysium orbiting the Earth with the ability to cure themselves should they ever fall ill, and the poor, unfortunate souls who are forced to live in an impoverished, polluted, and over-populated Earth and struggle to keep healthy. Matt Damon plays Max, an ex-con who's trying to stay on the straight and narrow path by taking a job in a factory. On an exceptionally shitty day, droids pull him aside merely for being a parolee and break his arm before he heads to work, where he accidentally gets exposed to lethal radiation that will kill him in five days time. Wee! Max then decides the only way he can survive is by sneaking onto Elysium and finding himself into a magical pod that can cure him--but in order to do that, he'll have to attach a heavy duty exoskeleton thingy to himself and hijack some codes out of a Elysian's head, not knowing that said codes could change the course of history...
Also along for the ride are Jodie Foster as a diabolical Defense Secretary of Elysium (one with a SUPER questionable accent) and Sharlto Copley as a rouge sleeper agent on Earth who's gone a little batshit insane and will stop at nothing to make sure Max doesn't reach Elysium alive. Of course, it wouldn't be a summer action movie if there wasn't a dame, and Alice Braga plays Max's childhood friend who, naturally, has a dying daughter of her own.
Now, Elysium is being billed as a thinking-man's summer action film, and this is definitely an accurate statement in that there is a bunch of political agenda wrapped into a sci-fi flick about the haves and the have-nots. There is gunfire and neato gadgets and space crafts and a bunch of really cool set pieces designed by the same dude who brought you dystopia at its finest in Blade Runner, all which add up to some pretty cool shit. There are even really fun hand-to-hand fighting and some really gross things happening to body parts, and while this is all really neat and exciting, at the end it all boils down to a climax everyone with a brain (or someone who watches a shit load of movies) can see coming a mile away.
But Elysium is a fun ride, nonetheless, with a decent performance by Damon, who spends most of his time limping around or passed out when he's not fighting Copley, who is (duh) one of the best things about this film. Can he just go around playing sadistic assholes for a living, please? It's the end of a kinda disappointing movie summer, and Elysium is definitely a nice little palate cleanser even with its faults. It's a great action flick for those who don't want to read into all the political mumbo jumbo, and it's a nice change of pace for those who are currently bored of all those comic book heroes at the moment.
-- Darcie Duttweiler
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