Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Four years ago in 2009, Neil Blomkamp took the science fiction world by storm with a little diddy called District 9. That movie did everything right with excellent direction, great acting, and perfect world building. So, you can imagine how excited everyone was when Blomkamp announced his next endeavour, Elysium, would be another heavy science fiction film. We all waited with baited breath to see if this movie would live up to Blomkamp’s first feature film, and now it’s finally here. Sadly, Elysium doesn’t quite live up to the standards that Blomkamp set with his debut feature. But let’s first talk about what Elysium IS exactly.
Elysium takes place in a dystopic future where Earth is ravaged by overpopulation, and the entire planet has become slums. It’s as if the whole of the planet became one big third world country. All of the richer folks escaped to a glorious space station called Elysium. The movie follows Max (Matt Damon), an ex con who is trying to live a clean life in the slums of Los Angeles. Though, when Max has an accident at work, he must turn back to his life of crime in order to get onto Elysium and save his life.
There are a lot of problems with this movie, but I think the biggest one is the script. While I did think that this movie had a lot of potential (from a basic plot standpoint), it just went in the wrong direction and got all muddled up. That being said, I think the script was very concise and made the pacing of the film really good. At just 109 minutes, the movie really flew by. I was just hoping for more of the excellent world building that we saw in District 9. 
Other than the script, everything else was pretty decent. The film had some great style (as expected), with some really well shot action sequences. The acting was pretty good, though some stood out more than others. Sharlto Copley and Matt Damon were really good in their respective roles, with Copley playing the ridiculous, over the top Kruger (who is chasing Damon the whole film.) Then there was Jodie Foster. What the hell was she doing this entire movie? What the hell was that accent? Dear god was that awful!
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While the story wasn’t all there, the visuals were still beautiful, and the acting was compelling. Overall, not a terrible movie, but it didn’t quite live up to the legacy of the phenomenal District 9. Still worth seeing, though.
Writing: 4.5/10
Visuals: 7.5/10
Acting: 6.5/10
Pacing: 7.5/10
Score: 5.5/10
Rewatchability: 6.5/10
Score: 6.3/10
