Elysium (NEW BLOMKAMP!)

[MacGuffin]

Release date: August 9, 2013

Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga

Directed by: Neill Blomkamp

Premise: Set in the year 2159, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth, a man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds.

[©brad]

Okay then.

[RegularKarate]

One of the movies I'm most excited for this year. I love well-executed heavy-handed SciFi metaphors.

[Pubrick]

this guy can do anything!

i want to believe!

(i've changed the title because i had no idea what this was. i would have shat myself much sooner if it had been made clear that it's by a totally hot shit director who has the potential to redeem mankind, like his characters!)

[Lottery]

I'm happy that someone is finally using those space colony designs.  I think Fincher's Rendezvous with Rama was going to have those too.

Anyway, Blomkamp is a cool dude, I really want this to go well. It better have an abundance of Sharlto Copley.

[pete]

the reason I liked district 9 was because it was a scifi that found its political topical parable without resorting to the Brave New World cliches, but this one is squarely, very squarely, rooted in that "in the future everyone lives with a retarded circumstance invented by the screenplay, except one guy who's all like 'hey guys wait a minute here'..." most embarrassingly seen in that recent Justin Timberlake movie. It's getting boring.

[Lottery]

Really this is just the real world's equality gap between the rich and poor, times about 300 plus sci-fi.

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer

[03]

expectations elevated +100

[03]

so i just watched this:

wtf?
am i crazy?

[Pubrick]

first of all, that colour scheme is shit and doesn't bode well for the overall quality of this production.

secondly. yep that's crazy, what the hell is up with dunst and "twin" planets and kissing upside down?

i'm still backing elysium.

[pete]

seriously, I'm soooo sick of those one beautiful young dude saying "this is bullshit" scifi movies.

[modage]

Was pretty thoroughly disappointed by this. For a story that could have been so simple (see: the trailer) it's needlessly complicated/convoluted. Jodie Foster is horrible. Matt Damon's character development basically amounts to a few flashbacks and that one line in the trailer where he jokes about having hair products in his bag. Visually though it's the shit. The production design is amazing and Blomkamp is in the top 1% of directors who know how to seamlessly incorporate FX into their films. But storywise it's a letdown. You never really get that "Oh shit!" moment you're waiting for because you don't really give a shit about what's going on. Removed from the narrative of Neill Blomkamp: Geek Savior, this is not a very good movie. (But since I can't ignore that, I still hope this does well.) Like most of this summer's blockbusters this really just needed another few passes on the script. 

[Lottery]

Hoping I'll get a kick out of it (I most probably will). My expectations were ridiculously high after D9 so if this disappoints me, it'll be partially my fault.

How was Copley?

[modage]

How was Copley?

He has some cool stuff but it's of the one-note villain variety. His accent is off the chain, though.