Elysium suffers from a few plot holes that took me out of the movie a few too many times. Normally I can let it slide when something just doesn't make sense, but the holes here are so gaping it made it difficult for me to stay focused on the action, which really was quite good.
Elysium follows Max (Matt Damon), a rehabilitated ex-con who is now working as a low level button-pusher for Armadyne (I really love it when futuristic companies use "dyne" in them) a weapons/robotics/drone manufacturer. Bad stuff happens to Max and he has to get on to Elysium, an orbiting Halo-like object where 8,000 rich folks live away from the gross poor people, and where they have little medusa-like chambers that can heal any ailment, which is what Max now needs.
Armadyne is owned by John Carlyle (William Fichtner, who I continue to love). He hatches a plan with Delacourt (Jodie Foster), the Secretary of Defense to topple the Elysium government in exchange for Delacourt taking control of the government and Carlyle getting all the tasty government contracts that every weapons manufacturer desperately wants. Through some weird brain stuff that isn't really well explained, the plans get in to Max's head and now he has to get to Elysium to save himself, and his childhood sweetheart's kid, who has cancer.
Elysium is where the majority of my continuity issues take place. The world below is portrayed as a huge shit-hole, where everyone speaks Spanish, there are no jobs, and everyone is sick and dying, or on probation. Elysium is a high society place where they only listen to classical music and whenever an undesirable (read: poor person) appears, they freak out and run in to their fancy houses. These fancy houses are where they have their healing pods, which is what the poor folks want as well, because as stated earlier, most folks on earth are sick or diseased.
No one on Elysium has a home defense drone or robot. So when the poor folks break through their glass windows, they just waltz right in and with the help of some poorly explained DNA-scrambler get treatment. Home defense drones are the future. Get a home defense drone. It will prevent poor folks from getting in to your house and using your machines to fix their ailments. Poor people should all die. Duh, they are poor. That's the general consensus on Elysium.
There's also a main character, Spider (Wagner Moura), who I couldn't understand really well, but he was essentially a slum lord down on earth that makes money by smuggling people to Elysium. He helps Max get up there. Personally, if I was writing this thing out, I would have made Spider a former Elysium citizen, outcast due to his gambling habits or other generally frowned-upon activities, who helps the regular poor folks get back up to Elysium to help them and also get back at those no-good rich folks. That would have made for a much more dynamic and interesting character. Unfortunately, Spider isn't. But he's really good at yelling and acting dismayed.
That's really a writing issue though, which is where I had the most problems with the movie. Blomkamp does a decent job of introducing a futuristic world (though I take issue with pick-up trucks and Nissan GT-R's still being serviceable in the year 2154), but he doesn't do enough to flesh it out. Elysium is 109 minutes long. If it had an extra half hour, or even 15 minutes dedicated to explaining how Elysium was built (there were some physics things I took issue with that could have been explained in a few sentences), and giving a bit more depth to the various characters, the film would have been much, much better. As it is is though, Elysium is a decent action movie with good effects, but little else.
3/5 from me for good action, effects, and directing. I can't give it a better score though because the writing did detract from the greatness this movie could have had. I hope there's a director's cut in the future with an hour more of back story, but I doubt that will materialize, which is a damn shame. It's a neat premise.
Armadyne is owned by John Carlyle (William Fichtner, who I continue to love). He hatches a plan with Delacourt (Jodie Foster), the Secretary of Defense to topple the Elysium government in exchange for Delacourt taking control of the government and Carlyle getting all the tasty government contracts that every weapons manufacturer desperately wants. Through some weird brain stuff that isn't really well explained, the plans get in to Max's head and now he has to get to Elysium to save himself, and his childhood sweetheart's kid, who has cancer.
Elysium is where the majority of my continuity issues take place. The world below is portrayed as a huge shit-hole, where everyone speaks Spanish, there are no jobs, and everyone is sick and dying, or on probation. Elysium is a high society place where they only listen to classical music and whenever an undesirable (read: poor person) appears, they freak out and run in to their fancy houses. These fancy houses are where they have their healing pods, which is what the poor folks want as well, because as stated earlier, most folks on earth are sick or diseased.
No one on Elysium has a home defense drone or robot. So when the poor folks break through their glass windows, they just waltz right in and with the help of some poorly explained DNA-scrambler get treatment. Home defense drones are the future. Get a home defense drone. It will prevent poor folks from getting in to your house and using your machines to fix their ailments. Poor people should all die. Duh, they are poor. That's the general consensus on Elysium.
There's also a main character, Spider (Wagner Moura), who I couldn't understand really well, but he was essentially a slum lord down on earth that makes money by smuggling people to Elysium. He helps Max get up there. Personally, if I was writing this thing out, I would have made Spider a former Elysium citizen, outcast due to his gambling habits or other generally frowned-upon activities, who helps the regular poor folks get back up to Elysium to help them and also get back at those no-good rich folks. That would have made for a much more dynamic and interesting character. Unfortunately, Spider isn't. But he's really good at yelling and acting dismayed.
That's really a writing issue though, which is where I had the most problems with the movie. Blomkamp does a decent job of introducing a futuristic world (though I take issue with pick-up trucks and Nissan GT-R's still being serviceable in the year 2154), but he doesn't do enough to flesh it out. Elysium is 109 minutes long. If it had an extra half hour, or even 15 minutes dedicated to explaining how Elysium was built (there were some physics things I took issue with that could have been explained in a few sentences), and giving a bit more depth to the various characters, the film would have been much, much better. As it is is though, Elysium is a decent action movie with good effects, but little else.
3/5 from me for good action, effects, and directing. I can't give it a better score though because the writing did detract from the greatness this movie could have had. I hope there's a director's cut in the future with an hour more of back story, but I doubt that will materialize, which is a damn shame. It's a neat premise.
