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  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1535108/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Stars: Matt Damon Jodie Foster Sharlto Copley Elysium was released August 9, 2013, and directed by Neill Blomkamp (most recognized for District 9, but also worked as a 3-D animator for shows like Stargate SG-1 and Smallville.). The story takes place in the year 2154, and features a civilization that is divided by wealth. The wealthiest individuals live on a giant space station known as 'Elysium', and are privy to all sorts of luxuries; not limited to, but certainly the most important of these is the "Med-Bay" which can cure all known illnesses, as well as prevent aging. Being an Elysian citizen is the definition of posh, however if you're one of the majority stuck on Earth...well basically, to quote Ron Perlman's character from Alien Resurrection, "Earth....man what a shithole.". Well, that quote sums it up, or one could simply visit Detroit, and the same point would be made. Earth is essentially run by the Elysians, who enforce the harsh laws with police robots, and view the people living on the planet as second class citizens. To quote a segment from the IMDB page: "When unlucky Max is backed into a corner, he agrees to take on a daunting mission that, if successful, will not only save his life but could bring equality to these polarized worlds." Elysium has to date scored a 6.7 rating on IMDB, and a 61 on metacritic. Needless to say, it is overall seen as quite a step down from Blomkamp's previous movie, District 9. The movie has garnered just about every opinion under the sun, from stating it is extremely racist, a blatantly transparent political statement on the current healthcare/"1%" debate, to having it's plot deemed to be disjointed at best, and full of holes. Honestly, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, but I can't argue that the way the story is delivered was pretty lackluster, but given that, I was still able to follow clearly. I found the action sequences to be quite great, no crazy space lasers or anything, but some decently interesting ideas being tossed around concerning the tech, and it looked pretty drat good. Concerning the plot, which is probably the biggest thing to discuss, there's plenty of holes to cover and quite a few things that feel like they should somehow relate to the story, but aren't tied in correctly, or fleshed out in anyway. Delacourt's death for instance. The actors themselves did a good enough job, Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, certainly not my favorite actors by any means, but gave a performance that was by far convincing of the role. However, it's fairly obvious to me that Sharlto Copley, (lead actor of District 9), stole the show. His presentation of the character Kruger made for an interesting villain, and he played the bad guy well. The soundtrack fit the scenes great, and was composed by the, for the most part, as of yet unknown Ryan Amon (is now working on the soundtrack for Blomkamp's next film "Chappie", which Sharlto Copley is also acting in). Regardless, I'm interested to see some of the other opinions of people that have seen this, and hopefully be able to discuss some of the plot problems/loose ends, and maybe even figure out that some of it is actually explained in someway, albeit very, VERY vaguely!
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May 10, 2014 02:04
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Anonymous Robot posted:That's why so many people bristle at the supposed cop-out of an ending. Oh I agree 100% with this. The ending was probably the biggest disappointment for me. I guess one could argue that Blomkamp left it "open ended", in that poo poo probably fell apart quickly (which it would.), but that's requiring the viewer to infer A LOT from an ending that basically states, welp, everybody is a citizen now, so now they have access to the med-bays and luxuries of Elysium, all will be well with the world. Completely wouldn't be the case. either the Elysians would wind up correcting the new programming, or the various gangs that ran the Earth, would simply invade Elysium and gently caress poo poo up even more (most probable). To be quite honest, when I say I enjoy this movie, it's only when I DON'T try and relate the story it conveys to anything that is actually happening in the world now. Not at all what the director intended, but still. There's a lot of movies I tend to do this with, especially in the sci-fi genre. Just keep it's story to it's own specific universe, and leave the real one and it's relations out of it. Even doing that, the ending was poor. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Sharlto's sleazy technobogan mall ninja is such a great goddamn villain. I love the idea of it being Idiocracy played straight. Neo Rasa posted:The unused-in-film implication that Kruger is so crazy because this movie's events aren't the first time he's been revived and that he's kept away from Elysium because he's gone through 250 years of this poo poo is so cool. Personally, the first time watching this film, I thought Kruger was just a mediocre villain that was your average batshit merc. Nothing stellar. It's a shame, because given the backstory and poo poo that goes along with the Elysian characters (in an interview it's stated Delacourt is 108 years old, and Kruger was supposedly born in the 1970's). There is SO much that could have been done to flesh those characters out in that respect, and actually develop them a substantial amount. Knowing all the information, the characters and their motivations make a lot more sense than what you gather from the movie alone. The problem with this, is that it's a pretty bad thing when you have to find outside information, other than what's in the movie, to make most of the lead characters and their attitudes make any sort of sense. Another thing that I've questioned, is Delacourt's death. Kruger stabs her in the neck and tosses her in with Frey, who tries to help her, but Delacourt refuses stating something along the lines of "No, no more". This is a perfect example of how the lack of in film character development makes this scene confusing as hell, and with just a LITTLE bit of backstory, could have been fleshed out to be a defining moment for the character. Basically what I mean is, was her motivation for not wanting help because she was actually repentant of her actions? Or something as simple as "No, I'd rather die, instead of being helped by this person that is so far beneath me", or was she just afraid consequences she'd face if she lived? Things like that, that could have served either as a major redeeming point for the character, or just a final piece of info that cements the character as a "true, stuck in their ways, villain". Instead we have to infer all this, and it just feels incomplete. Which leads me to believe, that this would probably make a much, MUCH better novel, if written properly, than a movie. But still, it was fun to watch, and I had a good time with it. For me, in the end, that's what counts!
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May 11, 2014 00:36
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SALT CURES HAM posted:Max flipping the switch to make everyone a citizen is essentially the same as if America's poor rose up and took all the rich's toys for themselves. Yeah, but the problem with this, is human nature. You'd wind up having the same situation, if not WORSE, because when the citizens of Earth took the Elysians poo poo, you'd eventually end up getting a handful of gangs that would wind up controlling it all, instead of every poor person having a chunk. Spyder's gang wasn't the only one, and given the way history has shown us, unless you were a relatively important member in one of the gangs, you'd still be poo poo out of luck. At least with the Elysians running it, the gangs were in the same situation. Basically the ending, vague and cheery as it is...is really bleak as gently caress if you think about it for a second.
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May 11, 2014 09:36
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SALT CURES HAM posted:That's not really what I'm arguing, though. You're taking issue with the concept of a populist revolution in general, I'm taking issue with the assertion that this film is portraying a center-left US-liberal fantasy of revolution through compromise. Ah, perhaps I did misread your comment. That's what I get for checking the thread out at a little after 2 in the morning! My apologies. exquisite tea posted:I hate this movie, not so much for the film itself, but for all the embarrassing opinions I've read surrounding the discussion of it, to the point where I feel it was engineered specifically to provoke the most excruciatingly dumb statements out of human beings from all political persuasions possible. Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you here for the most part. Discussing the plot, and what it's meant to deliver is fine. However, (and this isn't just limited to this thread mind you but nearly every other discussion I've seen of this movie on the internet), I've seen discussions of that delve off into some pretty weird tangents. FlamingLiberal posted:Yeah this is what I took away from it. It looks great, and clearly there was a lot of thought put into it, but the characters are paper-thin and Jodie Foster's character in particular is pretty wasted here. She gets virtually no development, and little screen time in the end. Damon is fine, but he doesn't have much to work with here. I wish we had a little more of the backstory on how all of this happened fleshed out just a bit more, since that ends up more interesting than what actually goes on here. It's a serviceable film, but I don't think it works as well as District 9. I will be interested to see how his next film is, since it's going to be different from the previous two. Exactly. The actual delving into the characters to understand them, let alone actual development, is pretty nil. I'd certainly be interested to see if there were any major plot changes near the end of production, as it seems like that may be the case here for the mostly disjointed way the characters are presented. (I believe Neo mentioned that Jodie Foster's character role was basically reshot near the end...so who knows.)
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May 11, 2014 21:24
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Black Bones posted:some leader getting offed like a bitch by their own soldiers is something that doesn't occur constantly through out history? Who knew treating people like disposable garbage would ever have consequences?? Amazing. How you completely missed the point of what I was talking about. BMS posted:Another thing that I've questioned, is Delacourt's death. Kruger stabs her in the neck and tosses her in with Frey, who tries to help her, but Delacourt refuses stating something along the lines of "No, no more". This is a perfect example of how the lack of in film character development makes this scene confusing as hell, and with just a LITTLE bit of backstory, could have been fleshed out to be a defining moment for the character. Basically what I mean is, was her motivation for not wanting help because she was actually repentant of her actions? Or something as simple as "No, I'd rather die, instead of being helped by this person that is so far beneath me", or was she just afraid consequences she'd face if she lived? Things like that, that could have served either as a major redeeming point for the character, or just a final piece of info that cements the character as a "true, stuck in their ways, villain". Instead we have to infer all this, and it just feels incomplete. Not the fact that her lead henchman wiped her out, but her actual death, and the fact that she didn't want any help from Ms. Nurse. Why? Character development of some sort? Who knows, because it wasn't executed properly. I enjoy the film, had a fun time watching it...but to say that the plot, and the way the story is executed isn't full of holes would be, at least for me, being blind, deaf, and dumb.
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May 11, 2014 23:07
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Black Bones posted:Everything a character does and represents is development. Including how they die. We may not agree on the issue of whether or not some characters were underdeveloped, but we CAN agree that the soundtrack for this is pretty damned good. Seriously thought it was Hans Zimmer, (coincidentally the composer for the Man of Steel soundtrack), before finding out it was essentially a newbie to the scene, Ryan Amon. Rosscifer posted:I want to know what was going through Blomkamp's head when he decided to have those voice-over monologues at the beginning and the end. Especially at the beginning. "People won't know this movie is about exploitation unless I spell that out in painfully simplistic detail." I'd argue that all those were pretty relevant for the plot, but they were tossed into play so quick, that if they had been expanded on slightly it would have been quite a bit better. All except the ending. The "good guys" beating the "bad guys" wouldn't apply here, considering one of the first things to occur after the screen faded to black, would be that all the rival gangs would start fighting each other for control of the Elysian tech, keeping the average person in just as bad, if not worse shape than with the Elysians in charge.
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May 12, 2014 04:08
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 16:35 |
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Reveilled posted:Unless Spider was Space Jesus, though I saw him as Space Paul. Space Paul, 2016 Join the Revolution.
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Jun 29, 2014 04:41
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