Reel Quick: Elysium

By Brian @ Hard Ticket to Home Video


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Elysium (2013)

Elysium Mondo poster

Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, William Fichtner, Ona Grauer

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp (District 9)

Synopsis:  In the future, rich white people live on a pretty space station with magical medical pods that can literally cure everything, while poor, non-white people (with the exception of Matt Damon) live on Earth, which is now rife with crime and poverty and South Africans.

Best part: 

Worst part: Aside from Jodie Foster’s acting (What was she thinking?? Why was that accent necessary whatsoever??) and the horribly miscast Matt Damon, the magic med bays were just a little too much disbelief to suspend. They can cure everything, from terminal cancer to getting your face blown off and beyond. It’s very ridiculous. There’s no attempt to explain how these things work, they just do. You lay down, a wand passes over you and blam, you’re free and clear. How they reconstruct flesh and bone or extract a tumor from your body or remove your crabs is a sci-fi mystery. And apparently everyone on Elysium has one of these in their house. There are probably rich teenagers throwing self-mutilation parties where they’re cutting their wieners off as a goof then just reconstructing them in the med pod. Could you like cut the flank off a cow, use it for beef, then regenerate its tissue in the med bay? According to the rules of this movie, you definitely could. So why is there poverty and disease back on Earth? That’s my biggest problem with this movie. I know it was making an incredibly hackneyed sociopolitical commentary but there was literally no reason for there not to be med bays on Earth. If everyone on Earth had access to these med bays, wouldn’t that solve the seemingly constant issue of people trying to get up to Elysium illegally? At the end, several ships full of these med bays go down to Earth. Why weren’t they there in the first place? What do the people on Elysium gain by withholding that from the people on Earth? Their goal was to create a utopian society, not oppress a place where they no longer lived. And why was this technology being hoarded by Elysium? I would imagine the Earth is still functioning with doctors and scientists, nobody on the entire planet could duplicate that existing med bay technology? And even if they can’t somehow make a med bay on Earth, even though the med bay can cure cancer in 10 seconds, there’s nothing that even comes close on Earth? BULLSTUFF.

Best line:

Android Police Officer: [Referring to Max’s backpack] “What is in the bag?”
Max: [Max’s head is shaved bald] “Hair care products, mostly.”

Nudity: Kruger’s balls.

Overall: Neill Blomkamp was considered by some to be the next Lana Wachowski after the outstanding District 9, so we were all eagerly awaiting his next picture and we got… this. Visually, it’s pretty amazing. It’s probably the most I’ve been “wowed” by a Blu-ray in a long time, at least since Jumanji. He is a great director, and should have a big future ahead of him. Just maybe lay off the broad social commentary, Neill. It’s too in your face, and nobody gives a shit when they’re trying to watch a sci-fi action flick. If you want to make a motion picture comment on health care, make a drama grounded in reality. That’s not saying you can’t made a good sci-fi with a good story, just ease back on the sociopolitical throttle a little bit and let a story develop in its own world. Work with another writer. You would be awesome as the director of Star Wars Episode VIII or a remake of The Last Starfighter (even better). You can do it, Neill!

Score: 6 horrible French accents (out of 10)

44 thoughts on “Reel Quick: Elysium”

  4. Yeah, maybe the whole segregated idea would have been better carried by a black, asian, mexican, or indian in Damon’s role. Yeah… I can totally picture Aziz Ansari making this thing 100% better by taking over that role.

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  9. I agree with you on Jodie Foster. I found her performance so bloody distracting. Film was mad pretty though like you mentioned. Was the first film in a while that made me think I really need a bigger TV

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        • Normally I have no problem with him but he just didn’t fit the apparent ethnicity of that character. They should have cast more of an unknown. Worked for District 9.

          I really don’t understand why Jodie Foster couldn’t have just used her normal voice. Making her French did absolutely nothing for the character.

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  12. I totally agree with you on this one. You make such good points. We South Africans are not the worst thing that could happen to the world though! 😉

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