Elysium

Elysium (2013)

67% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 233 reviews)

Runtime: 109 minutes

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp

Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, William Fichtner

From: TriStar

Oh man, after this I am done with science fiction in movies for at least a short while. This is not good; the Total Recall remake was better to me! That wasn't what I was expecting at all. I explain my reasons why I feel this way below: 

I figured that I might as well continue the kick of watching sci-fi movies that I've been on as of late. Although, after this one and the Total Recall remake, I definitely need to switch genres and see better movies. A few weeks ago I saw District 9 for the first time since I saw it on the big screen back in late summer '09 and both times I was the rare person who did not like the movie at all and I am still surprised that most love it like they do. This film... it's more divisive and there are plenty who don't like it at all, and I think most felt disappointed by this after they loved Neill Blomkamp's debut feature.

As for the plot... it's a bunch of nonsense concerning the future. What struck me the most was how uncomfortably similar at times this was to the Total Recall remake. Besides it taking place more than 100 years in the future, both deal with two distinct societies where they are separated by great distances, one oppresses the other due to them controlling all the resources, a lot of pretty CGI, talented actors (Bryan Cranston in TR, William Fichtner here) who cashed a paycheck and deserved more screentime, robot police... heck, both heroes even work at a job where they make the synthetic robots. That says a lot about originality in Hollywood, doesn't it? I could go on a whole rant about that but I won't. I'll just say that's a reason why I typically say a lot of bad things about modern Hollywood.

This film in particular, it started off sappy and cliché, but that wasn't a deal breaker right there. When I saw how the titular Elysium-a giant space habitat where the rich inhabit and the poor Earth-born people are explicitly barred from visiting-defends itself from those Earthlings that attempt to land there... “illogic” doesn't even begin to describe it, and believe me there are more befuddling moments that don't hold up to much if any scrutiny, including the dramatic ending. The whole story is just a bunch of flat, flaccid nonsense involving such things as exo-suits and a big plot point pretty similar to how I had to download and then install the big Windows 10 Anniversary Update yesterday.

The performances... whoo boy, some of them are just not good. I won't mention all of the bad ones. I'll just say that I imagine even Jodie Foster wasn't sure what accent she was trying to use there-unless it was one where you pronounce words several different ways-and I can't begin to make heads or tails of Sharlto Copley's performance. Was is good or bad, I don't know. At least Matt Damon, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Fichtner and even the young girl who played Braga's daughter were fine. The idea of hellhole 22nd century Los Angeles being dominated by Hispanics and many people are bilingual are among the few good ideas present. But you have such things as damn shaky-cam ruining the action scenes that stick in your mind far more than any positives.

As subtle as a grenade blast to the face, this was just a waste of time and hardly interesting at all, even if it “looks pretty.” The message is obvious and it did not make me want to get all angry at the ultra-rich 2% around now who would live at a place like Elysium. There's plenty of worthwhile sci-fi to see that tackle such themes much better than this did.