Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

I tried getting him to elaborate on something in the sports forum the other day, and his response leads me to believe he may be 9 years old.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Caught the Thu evening showing - as much as I liked District 9 and really wanted to love this movie, found the first half to be interesting and the second half's story to go kinda off the rails.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Sounds exactly like Disctrict 9.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Just got back from this and it's nowhere near as great as District 9 was. District 9 had it all: social commentary, depth, great science fiction, etc. Elysium has great science fiction but lacks depth. It's hardly heavy handed, because whatever is going on in the world is just there but we're only in L.A. We never leave it.

I do suspect that some character and plot development were cut out for the theatrical release, because there were some awkward edits throughout the entire thing. I was surprised that Neill Blomkamp was the sole writer of this.

BTW, for those that say the technology is way too advanced for the time period in terms of what it can do, the year is 2154. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I will most likely get the Blu-ray, because it was a good action movie. Sharlto was pretty badass, too. I did hear one of the butch lesbians sitting next to me say, "when did Jodi Foster forget to act?" Take that as you will.

I think that those that hated D9 will like this. It's a pretty basic flick.


EDIT - The film is gorgeous to look at and the FX work is epic. You can taste the grit on Earth and smell the clean air on Elysium - lovely compositions everywhere.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Seeing this now. Looking forward to it. So it can't live up to District 9, big deal. Just hope it is good on its own merits. Will report back.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

The New York Times: mixed review by Manohla Dargis, who seems to like Matt Damon a lot in this:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/08/09...ef=movies&_r=0

The New York Post: negative review by Kyle Smith, who thinks Matt Damon is horribly miscast:

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainmen...c9QiYb4zvtpztL

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Ha, I actually liked the crazy mayhem District 9 turned into in it's 2nd half :). However, I can't really describe it - it was more..."organic" in that movie vs. Elysium? (kinda built up to it)

In Elysium it felt like "okay, let's flip on the mayhem switch...here" and that's when a bunch of stuff converges to happen at once is a rushed fashion (sort of like in a typical action movie nowadays).

Agree with Why So Blu? on it feeling cut: there feels like a longer movie in there, and why the 2nd half feels somewhat rushed. Also have to agree with his lesbian friend: every time Jodie Foster was on screen, I was more trying to figure out what the odd accent she was trying to do...

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

She wasn't my friend she just happened to be a lesbian that happened to sit next to me. :lol:

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Starts in 5 mins. I'm very interested in this one. Let us see how it goes.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Another thing that sort of kills it in a bad way is: why it gotta be a white guy that saves the Earth? Granted, Damon has a Latin sounding last name in the movie, but he's the only white guy we see in the wasteland of L.A. Everyone else is a minority. Is he supposed to be our "savior?" Also, they cast a couple of Brazilian folks to play Mexicans. Again.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Maybe she was just really handsome? :shrug:

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Exactly my point on page 1-- the nuns could see he was destined for greatness because he's the only white kid there lol ;)

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/4.gif

now, that was a movie!!! exactly what the movie making process and movie going experience are all about.

didn't care about the social commentary (though it was there), it was just a damn fine piece of sci-fi action. just excellent. very reminscent of D9 in it's earth locale and color palette, still liked D9 better, but this was damn close, damn close.

Matt Damon was excellent as usual. i could give or take Foster. Copley was excellent as well.

the special effects were seamless and gorgeous. i just loved everything about this one and best of the summer for me!

just superb storytelling.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Nah, she was very butch and her girlfriend/wife was sitting next to her. This broad was putting the hurt on the popcorn, though. Goddamn.

It was a pretty packed house.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

It didn't bother you at all that Spider the car thief hacked into the future pentagon and became president in 5 seconds?

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

oh no, sure it was far-fetched and completely unplausible! but i just got wrapped up in the effects and the solid action. definitely the "storytelling" in this movie was not the greatest, but i thought as a whole non-sensical package, it just worked. i thought it was pretty mindless.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

I was surprised how gory it got at times. Definitely added to the action scenes!

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

that Sharlto Copley face scene was sick (both in a gross and most excellent way)!!!

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

That was epic. Our audience let out a collective yelp when that happened.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

he didn't hack into it. he already had the code from Damon's head. it was just him plugging in Damon to the server so that they could do the reboot. he also didn't become the president. he was just made a citizen. he made all people of the planet citizens. they didn't really explain who was the president at that point.

As for the movie, I liked and disliked it. Very heavy handed with all the immigration/health-care stuff. As a sci-fi flick, it was good. Blompkamp is a master at making a movie look like it cost more than it did. I think as with most movies Sharlto Copley is in, he steals the show. I love that guy. I was surprised at how light on action the movie was. Really only a few scenes of action.

Overall, a solid effort, not as good as District 9, but worth viewing.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

The Blu-ray should be stellar in its presentation.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

He became president: The red robot guards came in and 'protected' him from the former presidents bodyguards and arrested them. Spider says 'thats right you work for me now' (to the robots)

It infers Spider is president because he calls in the shuttles to go to earth and dispatch the med-beds to LA--Or who else could've made that order?

Also it takes 5 seconds because they wait for the LAST second to hit "enter" like every Sci Fi movie: You can reboot a space station in 5 seconds.

It was like a Michael Bay popcorn flick, good or bad.

Edit to add: it infers that 'rebooting' names a new president because Jodi and Sharlto both wanted the 'data' to reboot because it inferred whoever did would be in charge.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

I wouldn't go so far as to call it Michael Bay-ish at all. It's nothing like a Michael Bay flick in terms of tone and action. Elysium may have had weird edits and pacing issues but not as bad as any of Bay's stuff.

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Ok that is a little harsh lol

Re: Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Didn't the bots name spider a citizen? I thought it was cuz he now was a citizen and Elysium people were now not?

I liked it. Superb direction. Anything technical it was too notch. Story could have been better. I'll detail later.