Joe Schmoe

You're right: the exoskeleton was meant to make him stronger because the radiation had weakened him. When I posed the question, I was thinking the filmmakers went that way because they wanted to give him a cool, high-techy costume. After all, the meds he was taking could have been all he needed to be strong or have superhuman strength, but they went with the metal contraption instead. Unfortunately, I didn't think it was all that cool looking.

grundle

Here's my review:

“Elysium” is implausible, because it’s based on a medical device manufacturer that does not employ any salespeople

Elysium has too many loud, noisy action scenes, and not enough calm, quiet, reflective scenes of thoughtful contemplation. It didn’t have any lines of dialogue that I can see myself wanting to quote in the future. None of the characters were particularly interesting. And if I was a child, I couldn’t see myself wanting to buy any of the action figures that might be based on this movie.

The machine that instantly cures cancer seems perfectly plausible. However, in the entire movie, we never find out the name of the corporation that manufactures this machine. And apparently, there is no team of trained salespeople traveling all over the world trying to sell this machine to hospitals in big cities. And that brings up the most unrealistic thing about this movie: Since when has there ever been a medical device manufacturer that did not employ any salespeople?

In this movie, there is no Bill Gates-type character who donates huge amounts of his own money to help the poor get medical care. In this movie, there are no rich people who massage their supersized egos by having entire hospital wings named in honor of their massive donations.

While it’s easy for me to imagine that a bunch of rich people would want to live in their own private space station, there’s no way that every rich person would want to live there – there would always be some holdouts who preferred to remain on earth. But in this movie, there are no holdouts.

If they wanted to make a point about poor people not being able to afford health care, the following would have been a lot more realistic: a poor person gets cancer. They go to the hospital, where one of these machines instantly cures their cancer. Then they get a ridiculously large bill that they could never possibly afford to pay. They lose their house. Their life savings is wiped out. They declare bankruptcy. That would be realistic.

But the idea that on the entire earth, there wouldn’t be even one hospital that had one of these machines, is completely ridiculous.

Solid Snake

Grundle is trying to say something but I don't understand it. Someone fuck it up so that I can understand what he's trying to say.

Why So Blu?

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Save Ferris

I don't think it was very original. It was just like Total Recall, or that Out of Time movie with Justin Timberlake. And probably a ton of others.

hanshotfirst1138

Alas fanboys, the much-hoped for savior of the summer is not here, but a reasonably entertaining sci-fi action film is. Neill Blomkamp, the director the much-hyped District 9 and the walking film-fan dream who transformed from FX artist to auteur in a shot time under the guidance of blockbuster producer Peter Jackson, is back with Elysium. It's a propulsive mix of special effects, social commentary, action, and characterization. Sounds intriguing right? It is, but not as much as it should be. Elysium isn't a bad film, but given the potential District 9 showed and the four-years its spent in the making, it can't help but feel like a disappointment.

Elysium tells the well-worn sci-fi tale of a space habitat populated by the luxuriously rich, while the poor live on an overpopulated and decayed Earth, working for parasitic corporations, building the very robots who will assist in their own subjugation. Max (Matt Damon), a former convict attempting to go straight, gets caught in an accident at the workplace and is massively irradiated, given only days to live. Desperate for the medical treatment on Elysium to fix it, he connects with Spider, a renegade who gives Earth citizens a pass to Elysium for medical treatment, if they survive the trip. He outfits Max with a cybernetic exoskelton and sends him to kidnap a billionaire businessman (William Fincter) and download information from his mind. But he's connected to a dark plan with Elysium's devious defense secretary Delacourt (an icy overdubbed Jodie Foster, who sounds extraordinarily odd), and the information might just give Max's estranged former flame and her terminally ill daughter, as well as everyone else on earth, a fighting chance. But Delacourt will stop at nothing to prevent it, and sends and evil black ops agent (a scene-stealing Sharlto Copley, the best thing about the film) to stop him. Will Max be willing to make sacrifices for the people of or Earth, or will he choose to do anything to save his own life?

Given that District 9 wowed with a mere $30 million budget, Elysium doesn't dazzle nearly as much with $110 million. That's not to say that the film isn't impressive to look at-subscribing to the post-War of the Worlds view that special effects might not be so special anymore, Blomkamp's camera glides matter-of-factually over many cool sights, and some of the action sequences have a nice kick, but with the bigger budget, the film's grimy vision can't help but make one wish for a bit more scale. Blomkamp is undeniably a director with a talent for the visual, and most of Elysium does look stunning. But whereas District 9 had the exoticism of the South African milieu to look wholly different to a Hollywood audience, Elysium can't help but feel way too familiar. This isn't in itself surprising. As in District 9, Blomkamp proves himself resolutely a post-modernist, and Elysium feels like a massive jigsaw of films past. Sci-fi fans will all notice innumerable references to Star Trek, numerous anime, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Total Recall, Mad Max, Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Metropolis, Robocop, Star Wars, and countless others. Some are effective, some less so, but it gives Elysium a feeling of being very second-hand. District 9 tried to make its cliches feel fresh through its mocumentary style, but Elysium plays its hand pretty straight. The performances are all reasonably good. Damon proves an engaging protagonist, repeating Wikus' arc of going from selfish to savior, Fincter and Foster play their evil bureaucrats with odd iciness (I'm not sure if Blomkamp was trying to say that their behavior is itself robotic or what, but the performances wind up decidedly distracting), but the standouts are the supporting players. Alice Braga shows quiet pain as the mother with the dying child, Wagner Moura is the swaggering resistance leader, but the real standout is a District 9's Sharlto Copley as the maniacal assassin Kruger, giving flamboyant, feral, and thoroughly unrestrained performance.

But sadly, Elysium isn't the sum of it's many parts, and the parts feel undercooked. The film tries to actually harken back to the days when science-fiction was about something, but while Blomkamp's attempts at intelligence are admirable, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Like James Cameron's Avatar, however impressive the vision is, the message regarding complex issues is delivered with ridiculous simplicity, and feels didactic rather than provocative. Blomkamp is a talented filmmaker when it comes to depicting a functioning sci-fi world, but his screenwriting could use a partner to give his work more depth and texture. Elysium wisely doesn't overstay its welcome, but it ultimately winds up feeling like there are too many stray ideas lost in the crossfire. Blomkamp is a film geek's film geek, and his knowledge and passion are admirable. But he's not as edgy, as subversive, or as smart as Verhoeven, he doesn't have John Carpenter's lean, mean, clean, and muscular directness and craftsmanship, and he lacks Cameron's pop-operatic grandeur and perfectionism. The many parts never cohere into a whole that feels strong enough to work. What Blomkamp does have, however, is the grimy, grungy sense of George Milller. Every aspect of his dirty future seems wonderfully used and lived-in his scrappy vision feels like a blend of a low-budget filmmaking with a dash of Hollywood gloss, but with a proper sense of grittiness. Genre fans longing for the days of the R-rated 80s when McTiernan, Cameron, and Verhoeven weren't constrained by the ratings board, will likely love his punchy approach. The fight sequences all have a nice kick, and are suitably bloody.

Those hoping for Elysium to be the intelligent and exciting savior this summer desperately needed are likely to be left disappointed. It's good, but it's not good enough, and after four years in the making and the potential showed by District 9, it can't help but feel like a letdown. Blomkamp's heart is in the right place, but his talent has yet to catch up with his ambition. Topical, exciting, and ambitious, Elysium nonetheless falls more than a little short. Let's hope next time, Blomkamp takes a little more from the Nicholas Meyer playbook and tries to polish up his script a bit more before heading to the design stage. Better luck next time. But there's a promising talent here, and a film with many interesting elements. Hopefully, down the line, Blomkamp will finally hit one out of the park.

Save Ferris

One funny thing about the exoskeleton that kept distracting me is that it REALLY was only designed to be a support frame bolted to human bone. The hands and feet were just human hands and feet. If you PUNCH a door, you cripple your hand. Hell, if you punch a 200lb man hard enough to throw him across the room, you'll break every bone in your wrist. Feet too. All that tech was just silly.

stvn1974

I loved it. four and half and leaning towards a full five. If I leaned any more to the left with my political views I would fall over so that part of it I had no problem with. Day one purchase and now I am going to watch District 9 again.

mmconhea

It bothered me that he has his clothes on. I guess those pants/shirt are a permanent installation now too?

grundle

Perhaps the real message of the movie is that Damon wants a bunch of illegal aliens to break into his real life mansion, which looks exactly like the mansions on the space station in the movie:

OldBoy

^ damn!

islandclaws

2 stars.

I honestly wasn't prepared to hate this movie as much as I did, but this was big budget Marxism through and through. The socialist message was so heavy-handed I left the theater with bruises.

Jodie Foster was atrocious. WTF was that accent? She did all she could to kill this film.

Damon was fine, I guess. I saw him as the hoodlum rat he always was, and I never once felt like he deserved to go up to Elysium.

Everyone is a one-note character here. The rich are faceless elitists, the masses are all struggling people who, despite being obvious criminals, feel like they deserve what the rich have earned.

The production design was aped from D9, and poorly at that. Nothing new was brought to the table visually.

How the fuck did Damon get his shirt on after that procedure???

Sharlto Copley was the film's one true saving grace, but even he couldn't rise this muck out of the mire. Also, wow, is facial reconstruction ever easy in the future.

I could go on and on about what I hated but, frankly, I don't even feel like it. This movie was such a far cry from the auspicious debut that D9 was that I'm wavering in my trust of Blomkamp.

Why So Blu?

Yeah, I can see how the poor all looked like criminals. Poverty does that to people.

islandclaws

Damon and all of his cronies were known felons. Because they're apparent victims of circumstance that should negate their actions?

Why So Blu?

You didn't specify in your original post.

Arpeggi

Moving to Politics forum.

Why So Blu?

hanshotfirst1138

Was any of this shot IMAX, or is it just being released that way?

MScottM

I haven't seen the movie yet and so I cant play the critic with the movie but I would like to address some of your thoughts here.

I disagree with you on several points you are trying to make.

Your key point seems to be that you find it "implausible, because it’s based on a medical device manufacturer that does not employ any salespeople" I ask you, how many sales people do you think that company would need if it is the only company that can produce a device that CURES CANCER? Its seems to me that if for instance you hold a monoply on lets say WATER that you wouldn't need any sales people to get others to buy your product. As a matter of fact, the sales people that you hire would in this instance just be an additional expense much as it would be for a company that hold the patents to a device that CURES CANCER.

Now once again I will stress that I havent seen the movie yet but here are my thoughts on some of your other issues.

You seem to think that a company that can cure cancer would want to make that technology available to everyone. I disagree. I dont know the current numbers of people that die worldwide annually from cancer but let us agree that it is ALOT. Now, you have a device that can cure all of these people so now you have ALOT of people that would have died living and in many cases producing more people. What do you think will eventually happen?

Lets try this, lets say that one day a methed is developed to extend the lives of people to the 300 year mark and lets say that not only do people live to 300 but that they are vital and healthy far into their 200s. Do you think it would be a good idea to give this tech to EVERYONE that is alive? Just remember that there are consequences to ANY action. My answer would be no. But there are many that would say, sure why not.

"Since when has there ever been a medical device manufacturer that did not employ any salespeople?"

I will answer this with my own questions. Since when has there been a product that so many have known about and wanted/NEEDED to survive? When you have all of something that EVERYONE wants you don't need to advertise. You make it known and people will SEEK YOU OUT. Not a theory, fact.

Next, "there’s no way that every rich person would want to live there – there would always be some holdouts who preferred to remain on earth".

Once again, didn't see that movie but can't imaging that they showed EVERY spot on earth. Perhaps there are small enclaves of rich on earth but perhaps not. Maybe the wealthy that wanted to hold out on earth were forced to the space station by the people that thought that they have a right to anything that others own. People have a way of "wanting" to live where they won't be killed just because they have something that others want.

So in summary.

1) Sales people not needed when you have a product everyone wants.

2) Just because a technology exists that can help many it is not necessarily a good thing that EVERYONE have access to it.

3) Just because someone wants to live someplace, doesn't mean that it is feasible for them to do so.

Hopes these thoughts help you to enjoy the movie.

Solid Snake

That's a very well respectable answer. My issue with it is that you're talking to grundle. To be exact... Explaining something to grundle.

islandclaws

Just released that way, and it did not look terribly impressive in that format. I suggest sticking with a regular theater.

grundle

I still maintain my claim that a medical device manufacturer that does not employ any salespeople is completely implausible. And the idea that the biggest hospital in a major city like Los Angeles wouldn't have even one of these machines is ridiculous. And Tokyo - why wouldn't Tokyo have some of these machines? One of the reasons that "Star Wars" is more realistic than "Star Trek" is because the former has money while the later does not. Human nature is what it is, and technology won't change that.

I just watched "Moon" for the first time. Made for about about 5% of the budget of "Elysium," "Moon" is far superior in every way - plot, storyline, characterization, etc. "Moon" really made me think, and I found it awe inspiring. And when when I watched it a second time I loved it even more.

Why So Blu?

Nothing outside of L.A. is shown in Elysium - or mentioned. For all we know L.A. is all that's left. That's a pretty big leap you're making. Stay within the context you were shown.

hanshotfirst1138

I did, although only because I couldn't line up a time, I wondered if it was worth seeing again in IMAX.

gmanca

Now I really know why I liked this movie; at first I saw the cerebral depot plot device as a cool nod to Johnny Mnemonic, a movie whose plot and look I really dug, but there are way too many similarties and references for it not be another adaptation that takes from Gibson's tale. The hacker dude's name is Spider for one thing!