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ex post facho
Oct 25, 2007
I had high hopes going into this movie, especially since I thoroughly enjoyed District 9. I thought a well-crafted sci-fi movie with a great narrative was what I was going to get.

Instead, I got enough shakycam action that would make the Blair Witch Project blush. Jodie Foster's hilariously awful mixture of dialects from South African to Australian to British to whatever, it changed every scene. Sharlto Copley's band of rapey South African mercenaries and their largely impenetrable dialect were similarly difficult to decipher, given the background noise frequently overwhelming the dialogue in many scenes.

There was a great opportunity to expand on what happened over the next 141 years which led to the creation of Elysium and the declining conditions of Earth, and it was glossed over with a clumsy paragraph of exposition to start the movie. For some reason, Matt Damon's character is the only white person in the greater Los Angeles area left (the rest are apparently on Elysium); it's never explained how he came to live at a Catholic orphanage or what happened to his parents in the first place.

The shots of Elysium and the Earth were gorgeous. The droids and the interior of Elysium were very well realized. It's too bad the rest of the movie wasn't.

Ultimately, a Facebook post I read summed up my thoughts of the movie's incredibly hamfisted message:

quote:

How ironic that a movie about the division of classes between the haves and the have nots, where rich 'white' elitists are depicted as living as oppressors far above in their utopian homes and the poor brown people are forced to live in poverty and misery features a white guy as the hero. Again.

2/5

ex post facho fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Aug 11, 2013

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Gary2863
Jul 19, 2000

I felt like this movie was social commentary on the current healthcare debate, and it tried to put this into the public eye with a flashy science fiction movie. It was entertaining but honestly it wasn't a movie people will remember a few years down the line.

My friend and I burst out laughing at the scene where everything changes because someone changes a line in a program from POPULATION OF EARTH = ILLEGAL; to POPULATION OF EARTH = LEGAL;. Then the rich people apparently let the robots just do their thing so the poor Earthlings could get healthcare.

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Very fun, as long as you don't listen. Or follow the lovely logic. It's horrible. But really looks awesome.

2/5

A HUNGRY MOUTH
Nov 3, 2006

date of birth: 02/05/88
manufacturer: mazda
model/year: 2008 mazda6
sexuality: straight, bi-curious
peircings: pusspuss



Nap Ghost
The visual design was great. Everything else, not so much. I was especially dismayed at how much scientific plausibility was handwaved to death (in really unnecessary and obtrusive ways) for the sake of expediting the plot, only to have that same plot slow to a crawl in order to have 93 flashbacks of the same five thematically-relevant moments of the main character's childhood. By the film's final moments, I was continuously thinking "I GET IT, ALREADY." The more emotional moments seemed like they were overemphasized specifically to interrupt and distract from the nonsensical plot that was occurring.

Still, it was pretty cool how they just kind of stuffed an old digital camera into his brain. Oh no! They forgot to set the clock! JAN 01 1999?! That's not right! Now all his brain datas will have the wrong timestamp! Uh ohhhhhhhhhh! Also don't think too hard about the brain data transfers, thanks!!

2 of 5, mostly for for William Fichtner's delivery when he tells a peon not to breathe on him.


e:

a shameful boehner posted:

Instead, I got enough shakycam action that would make the Blair Witch Project blush.

This isn't an exaggeration. One of the very first scenes, in which a child walks twenty feet, had me wondering whether the camera had been mistaken for a hacky sack.


e2: The film helpfully tells you in some truly awkward expository dialogue that the villains are Really Bad People, so that you don't accidentally think the guy who is first seen blowing up civilian shuttlecraft might be anything other than a total prick.

A HUNGRY MOUTH fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Aug 17, 2013

Seraphic Neoman
Jul 19, 2011


Let's start with the good:
It's a very pretty movie with gorgeous effects. The shots of the inside and outside of Elysium are fantastic. The few shots of LA of the 22nd century are well done too. The movie's supporting characters are all pretty great and deserved to get more parts than the leads.
The special effects are fantastic. There was one scene where the villain's skull in regenerated which is equally cool and gross. The movie also uses a conservative amount of gore, enough to show battle damage but not go over-the-top with it.
All of the gunfights are super cool, with plausible futuristic weapons used by both sides.
There is the contrast between the sterile Elysium technology and the used Earth technology that is quite well done. One particular thing that I thought was cool was seeing a woman use the healing bed thing to sustain her youth. You could see parts of her face that had augmentations light up as the bed's laser went over them. These augmentations were arranged in a pretty, intricate floral pattern. I though it was a nice touch.

Now the bad:
The movie's message is painfully beaten into your skull all throughout its length. It's an allegory for the healthcare debate! Ya get it? Ya get it?! YA GET IT?! It is extremely constant and unsubtle about.
The villains are all unsympathetic assholes, lest we get confused that the man who blew up several ships filled with innocent civilians is actually a good guy.
The female lead exists for no other reason than to coddle her sick daughter, cradle dying people and get threatened with rape. That last one happens way too often in this movie. Once again, the writers were worried we would be confused who the villains are.
The movie uses (and, even worse, reuses) flashbacks way, way too often. I get it movie. I know what the leads' relationship is like. I understand why it's such a tragedy when bad things happen to one of them. You don't have to keep replaying the clips. It does it so often that I felt they were just doing that to pad out the movie's run time more. And yes, it has a soundtrack of a wailing woman while those go on.
Finally, the message itself. I was annoyed at how completely black and white this message was. We couldn't have anyone but the villains disagree with it. It was overly simplistic, almost to the point of being juvenile. Not to mention this opens up a whole bunch of additional questions and plotholes the movie never tries to explain, especially towards the end.

Overall, I don't regret seeing this, but I advise you to not pay attention to the dialogue or plot. Do that, and you'll have a good time.

3/5

Seraphic Neoman fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Aug 18, 2013

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
This movie goes from giant shitheap to only mostly terrible when Sharlto Copley tries to emulate Bennett from Commando in the second half of the film. 2.

Octopus Magic
Dec 19, 2003

I HATE EVERYTHING THAT YOU LIKE* AND I NEED TO BE SURE YOU ALL KNOW THAT EVERY TIME I POST

*unless it's a DSM in which case we cool ^_^
I went into this movie fairly enthusiastic as I had seen a lot of concept imagery on the tumblrs of robot art/character design/weaponry design/space station design, but had heard it was a bit of a snooze plot wise.

And boy was I rewarded well visually, and disappointed plot-wise!

I'll keep it brief: Elysium is a big space station in the sky for the uber rich who have access to magical medical technology that can cure any illness (How this comes about, I'm not really worried about), and live wonderfully bland champagne drinking/pool sitting lives, although apparently some work in the station government/military(?? They seem to have guns but no one really uses them?).

And without ruining anything of the movie, this is where I draw the most ire to it, aside from the characterization/child-like concept of politics. Elysium could've been a boat in the middle of the ocean for all it mattered, or a chunk of Northern California. We never learn anything about the citizens of Elysium other than that everyone there is snooty and lovely. We never travel anywhere deep in the station, we just get dumb (augmented) fight scenes.

Character-wise there was a lot of double up. Why was Matt Damon there when our soldier for hire Shartlo had even better motivation for going to Elysium? Why was there a random corporate exec AND Jodie Foster going for the same kind of goal? This would've made the characters a lot stronger IMHO and would've gotten rid of the weak love interest/designated plot carrier.

In the end, I got a bunch of poorly motivated characters on a poorly written world that happened to be very pretty.

Also what was hilarious to me was that, oh boy everyone can go to Elysium/have access to medical technology, that'll certainly fix the pollution and overpopulation issues that were destroying Earth!

2/5. Wish it was better.

Not Wolverine
Jul 1, 2007
The hot topic is health care, rich and white people have it, poor and brown people don't have it. The poor and brown are also trying to sneak into the land of the rich white people with endless health care, but are either killed before they enter, or deported immediately. No, that's not the current US political climate, it's the plot for Elysium! Clearly Bloomkamp was out of ideas. . .

The visuals are nothing more than District 9 with a short sequence on a generic space station, some say the space station looked amazing I thought it looked boring. Shaky cam was abused in this movie and the fight scene between Damon and Copley should have just been left out, it was by far the worst fight scene I have seen this decade.

The way the movie ends change Earth = illegal to earth = legal in a software program, suddenly an army of healing bays is dispatched immediately thus ending all of the world's problems made the entire plot a complete waste and just illustrated how poorly thought out the entire movie was. Elysium was nothing more than Bloomkamp's attempt to cash in on the same techniques used in District 9.

1/5 only because Sharlto Copley made for an interesting character. . . A character who was handed a crappy script, but still interesting.

Namnesor
Jun 29, 2005

Dante's allowance - $100
This movie was amazing to look at, and there's a lot of cool technology stuff and the fights were pretty rad. While the shaky cam was excessive, the camera was at least pulled out far enough that I could follow the action.

Everything else about the movie, however, was hilariously terrible, or just the regular kind of terrible. Jodie Foster, who as I understand it is supposed to be a pretty good actor, emotes in such a bizarrely over-the-top way I was wondering how no one during production called her out on it.

Everyone else has touched on the unsubtle "subtext" of the movie, so I won't bother.

2/5, but just barely.

Ka0
Sep 16, 2002

:siren: :siren: :siren:
AS A PROUD GAMERGATER THE ONLY THING I HATE MORE THAN WOMEN ARE GAYS AND TRANS PEOPLE
:siren: :siren: :siren:
Interesting concept for a movie. Fantastic visual effects. Everything else, from screenplay to post production was bad.

0/5

snaeksikn
Feb 28, 2010

:qq::qq::qq::qq::qq::qq::qq:
this is like a slightly better dark knight rises in that its a fairly entertaining action fair ruined by an utterly hamfisted political agenda ruining the story. a bit better editing and slightly tweaked writing could have turned this into a grittier fifth element but sadly it was not to be.

what it does right: the design and the fights. holy poo poo this movie kicks rear end in these aspects. you can really tell the designers had free reign in these areas and it shows. shootouts are full of imagination and bursts of unexpected gore thats becoming a staple of blomkamp films. some scenes are literally like the designers are having a communal orgasm over the screen and it tells, and kudos to the director for letting them have their head. the setting is compelling at face value, but does get bogged down in the detail.

what it does wrong: matt damon is pretty forgettable as a lead (not that he has much to work with in the setting) and again, the whole moral of the story is delivered in such a painful way whether you agree with it or not it really detracts from the experience.

this movie is best enjoyed when you grin and bear it through the storyline detail and appreciate the work of the designers in both setting and action. this probably sounds silly but i also appreciate the international cast of characters (even if they are pretty much all white)

i would give it a 3.5/5 but i'll give it an extra 0.5 for sharlto copley who just loving knocks it out of the park in his role taking it to a begrudging

4/5

runaway dog
Dec 11, 2005

I rarely go into the field, motherfucker.
I thought it was really cool, especially the first half, I'm pretty starved for some good new sci-fi stuff and this scratched that itch. I don't really have any hangups about universal healthcare parallels, any good dystopian future story is gonna pull from real life issues in society. the only scene I wish they would've thrown in is Matt Damon getting used to and testing the limits in his exo-suit 4/5

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No. 6
Jun 30, 2002

poo poo, poo poo, poo poo, poo poo, poo poo. This movie was just terrible. The dialogue, plot, and characters are too contrived to be believable in any universe, including this weird amalgamation of the future Slums of Libertopia.

1.5 / 5

0.5 for the movie and + 1 for the cool visuals and effects.

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