WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS (NOT TO MENTION A CLUELESS REVIEWER OF THE SCI-FI GENRE)
Elysium
Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster & Diego Luna
Directed by Neill Blomkamp (He brought us District 9)
Its uncanny that these 2 recent movies I've reviewed have single-word titles. Filmmakers must be running out of quirky, interesting names for their flicks. Whatever happened to titles like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? Anyway, I digress.
I went to watch this movie without knowing anything about it! I might have seen the trailer but I must have completely forgot the details somewhere along the way. IMDB gave this one a 7.1 out of 10 and I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this as much as I did.
Fangirl moment.
The girlie girl part of me really liked Matt Damon's character, with all the tattoos and fit physique, the greasy jumpsuit and badass/smartass attitude. Very appealing. For me at least. Anyway, moving on to the more important things!
Elysium is set in the year 2154 and the filthy rich physically perfect elitists live on a fancy-ass pretty planet (called Elysium. Shocker.) that's still visible from Earth, almost like a slap in the face for the miscreants left behind. You could almost sense the smug hoity-toities silently proclaiming 'it's just too bad for you, you poor bastards. We're living it up.' I felt that it was an unfortunate stereotype that all the poverty-stricken citizens that were trying to 'sneak in' to Elysium appeared to be Mexican and/or some other form of South American and the wealthy, healthy, gorgeous Elysium inhabitants seemed to look really, really European.
Matt Damon (Max) finds himself in a situation that exposes him to extremely hazardous levels of radiation and discovers that he only has 5 days left to live. He is then determined to find a way to Elysium to make use of their Med-Pods (which can cure anything from a grazed toe to leukemia). Jodie Foster was locking it down with the cold, hard security-is-as-tight-as-my-ass-bitch vibe but for some reason I couldn't really get into the swing of seeing her as the bad guy, her spoken parts seemed to be badly dubbed but then again it could have just been a strange way she might have been speaking. Either way, I don't think she was quite nasty or cutthroat enough. I was quite impressed with the technological gadgets and advancements in the film and even when Max became a semi-robot-cyborg-roof-rack-man I thought it was cool.
Some scenes had a video-game feel to it especially when the futuristic, ridiculously amazing weaponry was being shown. I liked the Med-pods that could cure every illness you could ever imagine. And the flashbacks that Max kept getting with memories of an old nun that gave him a locket with a picture of Earth from space to remind him 'where he came from.' The South African villain had one of the most annoying accents ever known to man but he was pretty fierce when it came to getting the job done.
"There's GOTTA be an easier way to spy on my ex-girlfriend."
My ratings:
Cheese: 2 Wedges of Swiss Cheese (Fairly cheesy with some [loop]holes)
With ALL the amazing technology and tracking satellite devices in 2154, they couldn't find ONE guy that was running away with the MOST important data on the planet? Really? Perhaps they should have tried a metal detector.
Chocolate: 4 Kit-Kat Wafers (Mildly sweet)
I thought Matt Damon's childhood love Frey was a ballsy, no-nonsense woman, my kind of leading lady. Her daughter was adorable too. I also felt the 'stab' when Julio (Diego Luna) met his maker fairly early in the film. He seemed like a good friend to Max.
Favorite Scene + Line:
When Max is getting 'pimped' with all his new metal bits and pieces. Right before he goes under the knife, he asks innocently 'is this gonna hurt?' How cute. An honorable mention goes to the scene where Kruger's face gets blown off mid-flight and subsequently gets reconstructed within seconds once his comrades bring his body back to Elysium. Visually very impressive.
Favorite Moment:
When Frey discovers a tiny tattoo that Max has of a symbol she drew on him when they were just children. It represented the promise he made to her to take her to Elysium one day.
Show-Stealer:
Spider, the hacker with the cane and irresistibly entertaining accent plus his uncanny knowledge of how to change the world with a few simple commands typed into what shockingly looks like an old-fashioned computer for its time.
Product Placement:
I couldn't spot any although I'm sure someone who knows their gadgets well would have been able to find something.
Soundtrack:
Very drum and bass-y with slight tinges of techno and classical music.
Arkasia, Kryptic Minds & Beethoven
It really suited the vibes of the film so I found it very apt.
Courtesy of IMDB:
Two goofs to look out for:
1. When the little girl with crutches is smuggled onto Elysium, the medical scanner diagnoses "multiple compound fractures". However, a compound fracture (modernly called an open fracture) is where broken bones cut through the skin. There were no such injuries on the girl as she walked with her crutches. BOOM!
2. Spider walks with a cane for most of the movie, yet somehow manages to run around without a cane during the fight scene in the end of the movie. BOOM!
Two trivia tidbits:
1. Takes place in the year 2154 AD, which is the exact same year that Avatar takes place in.
Spooky how both movies are literally worlds apart.
2. The car that Matt Damon and Diego Luna drive is a modified Nissan GT-R.
Here's the trailer!
NEXT UP: Kick Ass 2
Take it sleazy.
This is probably the latest a film that I have watched and only because it was a Matt Damon film and I was expecting a action thriller like the Bourne series. Didn't deliver for me. It was just so so and probably quite forgettable. The plot was weak, nice CGIs but that's it. Felt like it was funded by Brazilians or Mexicans. A little bit latino ish. Nothing wrong but not quite gelling..
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