Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) — The Reviews Thread
 

Please continue pre-release discussion here.

Movie:
"Elysium" (Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, William Fichtner, Alice Braga, Carly Pope)

Release Date:
8/9/2013

Rating:
R (for sequences of intense bloody violence and sci-fi action, language, there's a woman in a bikini who gets an MRI for obtaining a treatment for cancer, -words, sh*t, damn, b**ch, and a**hole are definitely used throughout.)

Running Time:
109min. (1h. 49m.)

Budget:
$100 million (estimated)

IMDb Synopsis:


IMDb Info and Rating:
7.2 (18,491 votes as of 8/16/13)

Rotten Tomatoes:
Fresh:126 Rotten:60 (68% as of 8/16/13)

Metacritic:
60 metascore ('Mixed or average reviews' as of 8/16/13)

Trailer:
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Poster Art:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...98/Elysium.jpg

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

the tomato meter keeps fluctuating. i honestly don't know what to make of this movie yet...

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

it's best to wait until you see it first

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

true. i'll see it Friday and let you know.

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

Interesting. It does make me wonder as to why the reviews are kind of uneven. Either way, I was going to see this no matter what cuz of what D9 brought.

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

def. D9 was the surprise of the past 5 years for me.

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

Well, I hope to see the theatrical print next week. Seeing the rough cut early last year didn't blow me away and just made it feel very much like the terrible Total Recall reboot.

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

Seeing it tomorrow night.

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

I detested District 9 so this'll simply be a curious rental for me, unless it suddenly gets amazing reviews. And even then I'd go in with low expectations.

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

I'm in the same boat, and so far it's not getting amazing reviews :p

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

whoa. Details please. How rough was it? etc etc.

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

RT is showing this with a running time of 1hr 37min and other sites say 2hrs....so which is it?

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

Socialist propaganda. Avoid at all costs.

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

Try harder. A social message is never a good reason to avoid a movie.

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

i've only been seeing 1h. 49min.

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

ok my beefs with it--now expanded
Saw this last night. It is very heavy handed:


The future seemed small too:



But the biggest thing that sticks out in my mind is Matt Damon's character:

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

how many stars would you give it?

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

2.5 stars out of 5 maybe 2 because there are some great action scenes to make it fare well as a popcorn flick but there are a lot of slow parts in it as well. This makes you dwell on the plot holes too much.

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

I agree that commentary in and of itself isn't to be avoided, the problem is Hollywood is almost always terrible with messaging. I have political convictions that wander all over the map, but the stock (almost exclusively liberal) tropes peddled in many Hollywood movies can be extremely off-putting. The main problem is that generally these political messages have the subtlety of a sledghammer to the skull. Hollywood almost always treats the audience as oblivious children that need everything spelled out for them. Nuance and subtlety are to be completely avoided as they're worried the audience might not "get it" unless a meglomaniacle Army general shoots missles into the beautiful "home tree" of the mystical/benevolent/enlightned noble savages (for example) for no good reason whatsoever. I have no problem with including a filmaker's given political ideology into a film, but when the bad guys are all cigar-chomping white, corporate stooges pouring rat poison into baby food with zero motivating factors beyond being evil and possessing the character depth of a sheet of paper, the movie suffers.

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

Elaborate on that.

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

Fixed.

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

Socialist or not, the movie oversimplifies the issue of immigration using black and white values of good versus evil.

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

Good or bad, it seems unanimous that it's not as good as District 9.

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

Rich people bad.
Poor people good.

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

Except I'm not sure that there are that many people who choose to go to a movie simply for its "message" (with the possible exception being some documentaries) - whereas there are quite a few people who miss out on some really good movies because the filmmakers have the audacity to actually insert political commentary into their otherwise "message-less" entertainment. I'm a flaming liberal, but some of my all-time favorite films from Hollywood's classic era are quite conservative, ideologically.

I'm not saying anything about this movie in particular, though - I didn't like District 9, and probably won't even bother to see this one barring strong recommendations from friends.