Directed by:
Neill BlomkampScreenplay:
Neill BlomkampCinematography:
Trent OpalochComposer:
Ryan AmonCast:
Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, William Fichtner, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Michael Shanks, Carly Pope, Talisa Soto, Sharlto Copley, Wagner Moura, Faran Tahir (more)VOD (5)
Plots(1)
In the year 2154, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) will stop at nothing to preserve the luxurious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium - but that doesn’t stop the people of Earth from trying to get in by any means they can. Max (Matt Damon) agrees to take on a life threatening mission, one that could bring equality to these polarized worlds. (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
(more)Videos (17)
Reviews (12)
One of my 10 most anticipated films of the year turned out to be meh. Neill Blomkamp still is an interesting talent as director, you can feel his almost fanlike zeal for smart science fiction, but like District 9, this movie stumbles with the script, though here it’s unfortunately worse. Elysium mixes a lot of things that are great with things that are far from great, and the result is inconsistent. First of all, I didn’t like: 1) The dense, black and white left-wing discourse. For most of the time, it isn’t so loud and I would have been fine with it, but the film lost me with the naive happy ending presented with a very serious face. Anyone with half a brain, or anyone capable of deducing the consequences of those left-wing ideas would realise that this can’t work. A couple of hospital ships (even if there were a lot more than shown, say, 1000) equipped with Med-Bays will peacefully go from slum to slum to treat an overpopulated planet, and people will stand in line and wait patiently? Yeah, right. And even if we assumed that “the resources are there”, i.e. that there are enough hospital ships, the film would deserve and even lower rating due to its hyperbole of putting all the rich people in the role of assholes who oppress the poor on Earth just for the fun of it… that would be extremely manipulative by Blomkamp, and I wouldn’t be willing to accept it. 2) The holes in the script, the half-assedness and the reliance on coincidences. All the activities of the Spider gang are so weird. Where do they get the codes or the ships? Why doesn’t the defence of Elysium do anything about it and waits to shoot at them one by one when they’re approaching? Why doesn’t Elysium have a modern defence system and instead uses some deranged agent to shoot down the ships manually (!!!) from Earth’s surface??? A criminal with his notebook is able to overwrite the entire system with the right codes? After one second of looking at a mass of code, the criminal is able to figure out that he’s holding a treasure in his hand and what that treasure can do? Earth is full of poverty, disease and destroyed buildings, but from the air it appears that lights work everywhere (=electricity)? The Med-Bays can’t cure a neck injury but they can cure half a head blown by a grenade? Or he didn’t die after being shot in the head? Really?! 3) Pathos, pathos, stupid pathos. I wouldn’t mind the left-wing stuff if it wasn’t adorned with slow-motion sunny scenes from the hero’s childhood. And the wise fairy-tale about a hippopotamus and a meerkat told by a cute little girl dying of leukaemia? God, why?! :-D____ And what I did like. 1) Magnificent sci-fi set design. The amazing design of Elysium, while on earth everything looks very realistic, worn-out, dirty. The world where the story takes place is brilliantly put together. 2) Sharlto Copley’s Agent Krueger, a brilliantly portrayed lunatic. 3) Certain moments in the script. Spoiler alert! For instance, the part when Krueger decides to take control of Elysium. I believe that the film would be much better if it focused only on Delacourt’s attempt at a coup d’etat, followed by Krueger’s military putsch and treason. They should have sod from the beginning that fairy-tale of the poor bastard that saves everyone.
()
(less)
(more)
The classic writer's evergreen about how a promising debutant from a remote corner of our planet came to Hollywood only to be scrapped by the very next film makes me want to sing along this time. But this is Blomkamp’s own fault. I would have also tolerated the leftist agitprop about an individual rebelling against a ruthless system this time if I hadn't had to ask so many questions during the screening, especially regarding elementary logic - How does Elysium work? Why does his defense work in such a stupid way? Why is the Minister being punished for defending him? And many others. It functions mostly because action-wise it's probably the best in years, and Blomkamp delivers the shots and moments in that central cut with such certainty that other directors would sell their mothers and their souls for it. Go back to the slums, Neill. And take those metamorphosis ideas with you. One day you will be a worthy successor to James Cameron.
()
Neill Blomkamp is certainly one of the most prominent characters in world cinema. Above all, he’s definitely an idol for sci-fi maniacs, because what he did with aliens in the middle of Joburg this time shook me in several ways, and I haven’t really come around from that to this day. I got really happy when I learned that Neill was making another sci-fi movie, this time with Hollywood actors, which promised a bigger budget and possibly a more epic story. In the end, I was hoping that all those Hollywood weirdoes and big-wigs wouldn’t make it into a political agitation, dictating what Neill could and couldn’t do in a good old American blockbuster. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t quite perfect either, just like District 9. Maybe because it was pretty similar. The worst thing for me was the camerawork. I didn’t mind it as much in District 9 – it was a low budget movie with a unique idea, done in a distinctive half-documentary style, at least in the first half. But Elysium is a blockbuster, and in that case I expect that all these space-ships, monsters and modern machines will be well-visible. And not that I would look at it all as if I were sitting in a carriage pulled by a horse through some bumpy path somewhere in the mountains. That was quite a problem for me. However, the director of photography Trent Opaloch collaborates with Neil on a long-term basis, so I don’t expect Neil’s films to change much in the foreseeable future. On the positive side, we get to see Sharlto Copley, who delivers an almost demonic performance.
()
Blomkamp, Kosinski, Snyder, etc. are all cut from the same cloth. Visually, they are very original, with an incredible sense of innovation and aesthetic creativity, usually producing simpler, even skeletal films. It's not always necessarily bad, but Elysium was in many ways very clichéd and unnecessarily simplistic. Of course, there is a political subtext with references to this or that regime, and a twisted rhetoric of "the poor, dirty and smelly" being the good guys and the "rich, successful, and thriving" being the bad guys. No matter how you look at it, we have a predictable plot with a clear script, several thrilling action scenes, and unbelievably polished and over-the-top shots that you'll want to see again and again. It's an unprecedented mix of futuristic sci-fi with brutally raw action and blurry imagery, that continues the trademark of District 9, just with a slightly bigger budget, so everything is smoother and more refined. Finally, we can't forget the show-off objects like the Versace lounge chair or the private Bugatti jet. The director is a big fan of image, and unfortunately, this film is purely "image-driven". Nevertheless, it is incredibly captivating filmmaking.
()
The shaky (like really!) camera and crazy (like really!) editing hand in hand kills all action in this movie; and the stupidly and superficially forced social conscience would also have killed the action... If there were any. Simply awful. And if that wasn’t enough, it seems that half of the movie is missing. And of course it’s the half where Neill “I like to make ‘too many cooks’-style movies" Blomkamp devoted to the story, characters, elementary inner logic and the links between the (unlinked) scenes.
()
