Matt Damon is Elysium

[fistfulofmetal]

sup

just saw Elysium

Thoughts:

It's average. Story is poorly told with far too many heavy handed cliches. Action lacks punch due to bad camera work (shaky cam). Characters fall flat due to bad writing and dialogue. Plot does not flow as well as it should and as a result feels awkward.

It has potential inside. All the elements are there to make it great. However nearly every aspect is handled badly and as such the movie doesn't work overall.

There are some decent moments and it's not terrible. You may get enough entertainment out of it. If you're looking for another District 9, this isn't it. Fairly disappointing.



spoiler specific thoughts:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The story.

It's bad. This is one of those movies where the story is extremely basic and thin. In the hands of a really expert write/director collaboration you can buff up the world building and characters and make the events contained in the movie weighty. Doing this makes up for the simple plot and that's perfectly OK. Pacific Rim is a recent example of this. However in Elysium the world is fairly straight forward and generic, the characters are one dimensional and generic. The dialogue is straight forward and filled with the most basic routine lines meant only to push the plot forward. Because there's nothing else to hold it up, the story is left flopping and we see all the messy, heavy handed, faults. RICH PEOPLE ARE BAD. that's the crux of it.

The Action.

So Blomkamp gave us some really well directed action in District 9. It was gritty and felt real. Some how that's lost here. The few action sequences are short, filled with shaky camera and quick jump edits, and just fall flat. They are so few and far between and disappointing entirely.

Kruger.

What a complete waste. When I heard the main dude from District 9 was playing a badass soldier I was like "awesome!". When I saw his design I was like "AWESOME!". When I actually saw the film I was like "Huh...". His character is about as generic as they come. He's an evil agent who assaults women and loves to kill people. You can totally have that in a movie and it can totally still work. But you need a great performance and great dialogue to hold up the simpleness to the character. Kruger has none of that. His actions don't shock you. His dialogue bores you. He doesn't give off the scary vibe he needs to work as a character. Then his ultimate fate is completely anticlimactic. I'm pretty sure I remember an image or a video where he has a fucking glowing blue sword. That never happens in the movie. His final confrontation with Matt Damon is just a basic brawl. It's short, lacks any clever touches, and ends abruptly. I'm so completely disappointed in his character in this movie.

[close]

[fistfulofmetal]

Kruger was the most disappointing aspect of the movie. He's nowhere near as interesting or badass as portrayed in the trailers. Completely wasted potential there.

[demi]

whatevs.

[Joe Molotov]

Matt Damon is John Elysium

[Barry Egan]

Jodie Foster is in this, right?

[fistfulofmetal]

the title isn't a typo btw

[Dickie Dee]

Saw it. Liked it. Yer crazy if you think Kruger was awesome.

[Verdigris Murder]

The thing that bugs me about Jodie Foster is that she's meant to be this lesbian, but she always ends up getting raped in many of her films.

Perhaps it's a cry for help?

[StealthFan]

The thing that bugs me about Jodie Foster is that she's meant to be this lesbian, but she always ends up getting raped in many of her films.

Perhaps it's a cry for help?

[Brehvolution]

Good jon Matt Damon

[Damian79]

The thing that bugs me about Jodie Foster is that she's meant to be this lesbian, but she always ends up getting raped in many of her films.

Perhaps it's a cry for help?

Or maybe she has experience with rape, not uncommon for actors to use past experiences to enhance their acting skills.  Its called method acting i think.

[Rufus]

That would be re-enacting.

[thisismyusername]

That would be re-enacting.

Re-enacting in every film? 

[drew]

gd soab i was so hyped the first time i saw the trailer, oh well

[drew]

yay iphones

[fistfulofmetal]

I've been thinking about this movie.

And I realized this movie is basically about healthcare in the USA

That's probably not a crazy weird theory. And it's probably exactly what the filmmakers intended. But I haven't seen a lot of people saying it.

The entire movie is about healthcare for the rich being denied to poor people.

[Cerveza mas fina]

The trailer lays on that theme pretty thick, with the rich girl just being scanned for cancer.

Think its more of a global thing, that the rich have access to healthcare beyond normal peoples means.

[fistfulofmetal]

Going in, the magic space beds were just one of the aspects of the film. They were there to build out the world and display how much of a paradise Elysium is.

But the magic space beds are actually the entire focal point of the movie. That's what really drives it home to me. In the movies logic, having free access will solve the worlds problems.

Crime, poverty, bad education, pollution, human rights, etc etc those aren't the problem. It's healthcare!

In a way, you could say this movie is about Obama pushing Obamacare. But I won't bother going down that road.

[Rahxephon91]

I liked it.

Now, basically a lot of the criticisms are fair. It lays down it's themes heavy. The rich people are incredibly one dimensional, which is unfair. And the ending(and in general 3rd act) kind of goes off the deep end.

But...

I enjoyed it's use of social issues. Look, most of the time this kind of sci-fi is on the nose anyway, I'm not sure why people are being tough on Elysium when D9 was the same, maybe because D9 isn't on such a hot topic issue that's in a lot of people's faces. Regardless, I liked it's future world depiction. I liked it's take of future immigration and whatnot. Look I like when sci-fi does take on some sort of issue and while it's not done elgantly here, the movie still creates and interesting world and premise unsutbly built around these things.

I actually thought Kruger was well used and didn't think he didn't have enough screen time. He had more then enough and their fight was perfect. In general the action is well done. When it comes to fists flying it gets a bit unclear, but the movie employs some pretty cool scenes in it's action parts. And in general the movie looks good.

I think for the most part it's well plotted. How they get to point B from point A makes sense and is rationale. I thought it was just going to be some Bs "oh this suit can magically hack it and you need to get to space", but a good chuck takes place on Earth.

It was a solid movie. I enjoyed it. I saw Kick Ass 2 as well today. It was a pretty enjoyable movie day.

[tiesto]

Finally saw this movie and agree with many of the criticisms in the thread. Movie was extremely heavy-handed and had far too much shaky cam. Really hate that shit about Hollywood lately, every action movie ends with a 20+ minute big battle with so much shaky cam you can barely follow it (I nearly fell asleep when this happened at the end of Avengers). Had no idea the villain was Wikus from District 9, that's pretty cool (I did dig how he was South African). Kinda wish they showed a bit more of Elysium and the future tech, instead of grimy dystopian LA.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Krueger getting total facial reconstruction was really cool, though I think that a grenade would've taken out his brain too

[close]

Business - interesting chart. What happened in '70 that made social inequality start rising? Deindustrialization and the rise of the financial industry?