ELYSIUM Review (2013)

ELYSIUM is written and direct by Neill Blomkamp (District 9) and stars Matt Damon, Sharlto Copley, and Jodie Foster.

I had some seriously high hopes for this film. I really did, and for the first half, I was getting everything I was hoping this film would be. Every reviewer I followed seemed to love this movie as much as I thought I would. But unfortunately for me, and the friends I saw it with, Elysium just didn't impress. Let me explain.



... quite cheesy and run of the mill.


From the opening credits, we find out that Earth is a wasteland meant for the poor. Whereas Elysium is a halo in the sky that houses only the rich and privileged. In the opening, we meet Max (Matt Damon) who is depicted as an orphan who grows up on Earth. This scene, for me, was quite cheesy and run of the mill.


Max's daily life was intriguing. 


Then the film cut to adult Max, and this is when the film picked up for me. We got to see how society works on earth, controlled by robots machined by the privileged on Elysium. It was very totalitarian and very exciting to see. We get to see what Max does for a living and hear about his legendary status as a criminal in his past life. All of which was very intriguing and just what I wanted for and end-of-the-summer film.

Cliche'd and cheesy timing.

Then Max has an accident at work (which was handled very poorly) and Max is told he will die in five days time... very cliche'd timing. But, I shrugged it off, the film was good, so what if it got a little cheesy, right? Well, one cheesy thing lead to another, including a heist gone bad, a dumb president, and a timely relationship. I mean, what are the chances that you're going to run into the love of your life, who just happens to be a nurse, who's child is dying so she has all her medical equipment at her house, when you are badly injured in need of medical attention? It all just seems to work out a little to conveniently for ol' Max.

So, Max gets stitched up, leaves, makes a decision selfishly, then is transported up to Elysium with the help of Kruger, the man who nearly killed him. Oh, and Max's love interest happens to be there too. How convenient.

I couldn't tell what the hell was going on during the fight scenes.

Speaking of Kruger, he was the best part of the whole film. Sharlto Copley is seriously starting to become one of my favorites. His ruthless performance in this film almost, almost made up for the horrendous shaky - cam fight sequences. Seriously, I couldn't tell what the hell was going on during the fight scenes. They were worse than transformers fights.

Convenient.

So, anyways, the film concludes in a nice tidy, convenient way. Like, brutally, painfully convenient. No ramifications, no nothing for the scoundrels that broke into Elysium. Oh, and apparently Elysium had hundreds of medical ships that could magically heal people from anything, but just didn't deploy them? So... I guess... Elysium citizens were just... dicks? Huh.

At least the CGI was amazing. 

I give Elysium a D+ / RT score of 48%