Film review of Elysium- by JustSeenIt Reviews

Full text transcript of film review of Elysium

Malaysia is an elaborate space habitat that houses the elite and powerful what on earth people suffer and die to keep Elysium running to save his life. A factory worker concocts an elaborate scheme to take it down in Elysium.

Hi, I’m Selina Scott, and I’m Kevin, and we are here to talk about the new sci fi action thriller Elysium. We’ve all just seen it, Scott. Take it away.

First, let’s just start. Neill Blomkamp last movie, District Nine, came out in 2009, nominated for Best Picture, one of the best sci fi allegories since 1968, Planet of the Apes. It was an allegory for apartheid, but with Elysium, Neill Blomkamp overreaches. This is a movie that is too convoluted and too confusing. And now that he has a much bigger budget to work with, it just looks like more of the same. And I felt like I’d seen it before. I was disappointed.

No, meet me too. I mean, the first 10 minutes of the film are breathtaking. Elysium, what the world looks like, it looks wonderful. But then after 20 minutes, you recognize there’s not a lot of story. It’s a lot of the sci fi bells and whistles and that’s about it. District nine worked because not only was it this allegory, but it had this documentary footage aspect to it and it had a handle on it. It had Peter Jackson there as well to really keep it from veering this way and veering that. We had had a pretty coherent story and it had a pretty great love story, which I think was really lacking here.

There’s this Medford’s which, you know, if you’re sick or injured, will heal you in like 10 seconds. And that will cause an overpopulation problem because nobody will be dying. And I thought that idea was actually more interesting than what he did with the rest of the film.

It’s almost like they had so many ideas, so many things they wanted to touch on, but they didn’t follow through because it turned into just another big budgeted action thriller.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I feel like he was so obsessed and so happy with this world that he created. He didn’t feel the need to create a story that he could live in. And as a result, a lot of these characters are just are just flat. And they’re especially with Matt Damon because usually he’s amazing, flat, completely flat, the entire movie, you know exactly what’s going to happen to his character. And none of it is really all that interesting.

I thought he carried the film well enough. His characters is really interesting. The problem was Jodie Foster, whose character does nothing, nothing. And she’s I hate to say it, but she’s so bad.

My main problem with Jodie Foster’s character is that her storyline was so on manicured. She’s very reactionary to whatever was happening, as if she’s not been in this world before is like, why now? Why why is she going crazy now?

I agree. Her character has no motivation. There’s no back story. I almost felt like they actually cut out her story because there’s a scene of her going into a party and she’s like kissing, I think her husband and her kids. And then it cuts away and you’re done. And I was like, well, what was the point of that?

So many characters in this movie, they are stock characters. They are full of clichés. And even though, like you said, Matt Damon does hold the film together, but that’s because he is Matt Damon and he he can just do that. He’s such a great actor. And the way he transforms himself physically, whether he’s getting buff for the Jason Bourne movies or soft for the Informant. And then, of course, he gets very, very buff, shaves his head for this film. He is a committed actor. I did love Sharlto Copley as Kruger.

Oh, he’s probably one of the one of the better. You know, I loved him. I, you know, Grant over the top. But he does these over-the-top characters in ateam and here. And I think he does these characters very well.

My problem with Sharlto Copley is that his character is just very well known. It’s one dimensional. He’s just like this mean guy who barks orders and he’s like all the time. I find him uninteresting. I thought the villain should have been Jodie Foster, and I was waiting for her to be the villain. And then he ends up being the villain. But he’s like a cartoon.

The special effects in this movie were impressive. The space station Elysium, even though it looked like the space station from 2001, A Space Odyssey. As a sci fi guy, I appreciated that it was an open space station. It had its own atmosphere that anyone could fly into. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that sci fi movie before. The stuff on the Earth. It looked too much like District nine in Johannesburg in District nine and Los Angeles and Elysium could be one of the same. And that was a problem. It did not give Elysium its own voice and its own.

Look, let’s talk about the cinematography, the handheld stuff. I couldn’t see anything that was happening. Yeah. It was so hand-held that I actually got nauseous and I never got nauseous. Yeah. But I my head started hurt. I couldn’t focus on what was going on. And then they kind of calm down when they went to Elysium. But right back to the fights, I just couldn’t tell what was going on. And then at that point I’d check out I don’t care anymore.

I get that, you know, there are certain things that any kind of movie where, yeah, if you’re going to nit pick it doesn’t hold water. But this is obviously a movie as much of this is an action film. It is still a film that wants to be taken seriously because it beats you over the head with so many issues. So if you’re going to want me to take you seriously. Thank you. Got to be a water tight ship and not have any plot holes.

And Neill Blomkamp creates a wonderful world. But unfortunately, there’s too many bells and whistles and not enough story to tie it all together.

Stream it. Elysium feels too much like District nine, but with a bigger budget, a convoluted story, it’s far less groundbreaking. A major bummer. I say Skip, it’s.

Elysium is a disappointment, but it has its merits, so I say extreme it.

All right, our votes are up to one full ticket, which is a treatment for Elysium.

Cheers, cheers. Cheers to the natural.

You spelled.