Escape to the Movies: Elysium

[Baresark]

I saw this movie, it was great. I have issues with the film. The message was heavy handed as fuck. It's so incredibly focused on it's message that it literally hurts the movie a bit. For instance: The only thing the poor are denied in this movie is healthcare. The whole world is shit, everything seems to be desert, but all that matters is healthcare. If I were to actually look at this movie closely, everyone acts as if food and clean water are in abundance, no one is starving. No one is clean, but there is running water in the homes and there is even television, the only thing missing is what is the movies equivalent of healthcare. It's also an extremely misleading message. The people of Elysium have magic technology that can heal anything at all and it's denied to the average person. Only, there is no limitations on this technology like there is on real world resources. They are just superficially kept from the average person. In the real world, healthcare is a limited resource. It's limited by the amount of medications in the world, but also the expensive technology behind a lot of it and the lack of trained personnel that know how to administer it. In the movie, they have automated ships flown by robots that can administer the treatments because it's literally automatic.

There, that is my one complaint. It seems big, and it kind of is, but it's a great movie other than that. The acting is excellent, the script for the most part is really good, and the special effects are really well done. They integrate really well into the movie like the CGI did in District 9. And the main villain is really well done, interesting character and more psychotic than you give him credit for until the very end.

 

[Bleedingskye]

I usually agree with Bob on most of his reviews but I gotta say I was severely disappointed with Elysium. Some of the GoPro style shots completely sucked you out of the film. There is NO development of anyone's character or the setting itself. While, yes, I like the idea that you don't have to explain EVERYTHING in a sci-fi film...not explaining anything is worse.

MINOR SPOILERS

Why would the rich not want the people of earth to be healthy? Why would they have the gigantic medical ships/facilities if they never cared about them in the first place?If they controlled the manufacturing of robots, if they literally had no more use for money, what was the point of it all?
Why did Jodi Fosters character suck so bad (her accent is terrible)?

You get no sense of what either Elysium or Earth is actually like and why any character was motivated to do anything.

Every scene in the film looks like NB shot a great scene and then had to cut 3/4 of it out.

Here's to hoping the directors cut happens and solves the problems I had with it

 

[level27smartass]

I personally like Blomkamp's blunt "society be fucked up yo and check these sweet robots" because it provides a base level entertainment every one can enjoy (explosions) with biding social commentary. To those who say that these portrays the wealthy negatively well thats the point since we live in a society in which wealth is the hands of few and we tend associate wealth with morality.

 

[level27smartass]

You know -- and this is just based on the information presented in the review -- if "the one percent" can just up and move to a space colony removed from the rest of humanity where they never have to work again, and the result is that everything goes to hell down below... doesn't that kind of validate the ideas presented in, of all things, Atlas Shrugged? You know, where all the rich people pack up and move to Rapture Galt's Gulch and everyone else is like "Oh noes, the people who actually knew how to run things are all gone, whatever shall we do?" because apparently "the 99 percent" are all idiots who need to be led by the hand by their, ahem, intellectual superiors.

What I'm getting is that this is a really obnoxious viewpoint no matter whose "side" of the conflict you claim to be on.

Do you even socioeconomic? When wealth is concentrated in hands of few that means they literally own means of production. Now imagine whats cheaper giving your employs fair wages or Exploiting them. Now exploiting people is cheap but diffcult work because they can just up leave however since you own mostly everything that means you control labor or lack there off. Detroit was a very wealthy city back in the day but your only option was working for on the auto manufacturers or a place that relies indirectly on income from said Auto manufactures. Now what happened was the CEO's found something cheaper than exploiting domestic-workers; exploiting foreign workers by outsourcing. So with cheaper labor there was no reason to keep the American Factories open so wealthy in Detroit left along with factories. Whats left is a poor local economy and a bunch of poor people. So its not that rich knows how to lead they just have the money to fix it and in capitalistic society that's what you need to succeed.

 

[Louzerman102]

6) Atlas Shrugged is just misunderstood.

I'm sorry, but many of you are just plain ridiculous.

(Note: I agree with your points one through 5)

Atlas Shrugged was a soapbox that Ayn Rand used to tell her viewpoints on how to live. The book is misunderstood by alot of people because it tells her views on religion, gender rolls, government, economic principles, sexuality and more stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head. Its an aprox. 1,200 page brick that holds a lot of opinions. It's misunderstood because people really like to cherry-pick aspects of it while overlooking things that differ with their argument.

example: Some Republicans use it to promote conservative views overlooking Ayn Rand was essentially an Atheist who was not only anti-organized religion, anti-war, anti-military, but also anti-donate to charity.

 

[spwatkins]

Weirs rhymes like piers or beers; it's not pronounced "Where's Beach". Funspot, though, is awesome. Check thier website, or local gas stations, for a coupon for 25 free tokens when you spend $20. (125 total, thanks to thier sliding scale pricing.)

Coming from the area, I can tell you that you are hearing the Boston accent again (if he pronounced "beers" it would have rhymed with the way he pronounced "Weirs")

 

[Samudra]

Hhhhmmm I think some people might be missing the point of this movie a little bit. Although the political/social commentary may seem a bit heavy-handed at times there are some more subtleties that could be entered taken away from this film.
This movie is not about class warfare in the United States, not at all. The creator of the movie is from Africa and (like district 9) it deals with an African perspective (which incidentally, is not the same as a black person?s perspective).

The place Elysium is NOT representative of the wealthy 1%'s lifestyle, it is meant to represent virtually all of us right now. It represents almost everyone who lives in North America, Europe, Australia, some parts of Asia and some parts of the Middle East. It represents everyone who has access to information (Internet), everyone who has been educated (at least grade school), everyone who has the ability to go to a hospital and everyone who is unlikely to die from a curable disease or starvation. I can honestly say that even people living in shitty areas in America or Europe still have it better than someone living in Somalia, or either of the Sudans, or Burma, or much of Eastern Russia, or much of Brazil (or hundreds of other places which is too depressing to list...). The message is that most of the people of Elysium are viscerally unaware of the plight of the people left on Earth, sure they see the news and are educated about it (much like MOST of us living in the first world are aware of the shitty things that happen in the 3rd world but do very little to nothing about it) but they are not concerned because they are looked after. Please note that this does not make us evil, it might mean that we are GENERALLY thoughtless when it comes to the plight of billions of people that we will never meet. This makes the population of Elysium not EVIl but APATHETIC. The point is that the few evil people on the planet are able to take advantage of that apathy and use it to their own benefit (either by creating ludicrous wealth or power).

The magic medical machine is representative of our relative mastery of medicine compared to the 3rd world, people routinely die from an infected cut in the 3rd world. Often simple anti-biotics means life or death to people and in much of the world an anti-biotic may as well be a magical medical all-healing box, as both are equally unattainable. People in the 3rd world routinely die from Dysentery and Influenza. Without even simple medical education and support life is a much less certain prospect. A very good example is Malaria in Africa, According to the latest WHO estimates, there were about 219 million cases of malaria in 2010 and an estimated 660 000 deaths (most deaths are of people under the age of 5). Malaria has a cure, Malaria is preventable, but because of a general apathetic nature of the 1st world Malaria can still kill so many because the cure is unavailable. Not because the 1st world is inherently Evil but because people are not aware of this problem/ don?t care enough to do something about it.

http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/world_malaria_report_2012/wmr2012_factsheet.pdf

Anyway, I digress.
The aim of this movie is not to make us feel shitty about ourselves, not to paint any racial or cultural group as evil but to make all of us (those living in Elysium) to become a little bit more self-aware, to look at one's self and wonder how every action we take makes us connected to other human beings who we will never meet or even see. It is natural to feel defensive when watching this movie, you should, it challenges our self image as good people. However, that does not mean that we should dismiss the message without introspection (not matter how psychologically comforting that is).
Hopefully, Elysium helps us realize that relatively speaking all of us are fantastically rich compared to those without our resources and social support. This is not something to feel guilty about, but it should make us feel compelled to help others who did not have the luck to be born in the 1st world. And perhaps decide that in some small way it is up to all of us to create small changes that can lead to bigger ones over time and try and bring about global equality.

 

[omicron1]

...It's Occupy Wall Street: The Propaganda Piece: The Movie.

Do not want.

In all seriousness, though, if Hollywood ever gets its head out of its rear and makes a "meaningful" film that isn't spouting the same liberal party line dogma my half the country has come to know and hate, I'd love to see it. In more ways than one.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Do you even socioeconomic? When wealth is concentrated in hands of few that means they literally own means of production. Now imagine whats cheaper giving your employs fair wages or Exploiting them. Now exploiting people is cheap but diffcult work because they can just up leave however since you own mostly everything that means you control labor or lack there off. Detroit was a very wealthy city back in the day but your only option was working for on the auto manufacturers or a place that relies indirectly on income from said Auto manufactures. Now what happened was the CEO's found something cheaper than exploiting domestic-workers; exploiting foreign workers by outsourcing. So with cheaper labor there was no reason to keep the American Factories open so wealthy in Detroit left along with factories. Whats left is a poor local economy and a bunch of poor people. So its not that rich knows how to lead they just have the money to fix it and in capitalistic society that's what you need to succeed.

OK, fine, fine, but how does the rich people packing up and moving to a space station make all of that worse? My guess, now that I've thought about it some more, is that it didn't really; the point is more that the situation on earth had already gone to hell, and the rich people moved into outer space to distance themselves from it, literally. Like the Axiom in WALL-E except it's just a few people instead of the entire human race.

 

[Basement Cat]

Funny. Bob's cheering this movie on while other reviews I've read are canning it. Time gave it 2+1/2 stars out of 5 and it only gets a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Uh...is this another case where Bob's inner fanboy leaves him giddy and oblivious to problems? You may recall how he said the Captain America might be "the best movie ever". Bob has as much of a track record for going overboard liking certain directors or movies as he does for reflexively hating others (I never listen to Bob when he talks about JJ Abrahm's work, anymore).

Has anyone else seen this movie? If so I'd appreciate your opinion on it.

EDIT: The 47% at Rotten Tomatoes has changed to 67% as more reviewers weighed in their opinions.

Oh no, a persons review doesn't fall in line with an average. How could someone like a movie more than other people. Better fix his brain chip so he can rejoin the hive mind.

Gracious, no! You misunderstand me. D:

It's not that I have the faintest problem with Bob or any other reviewers disagreeing upon movies or games. I have greatly enjoyed many movies that were panned at Rotten Tomatoes but supported by Bob. And vice a versa.

My point was that Bob has a track record of losing professional objectivity when certain directors/movies come up. For example anything to do with JJ Abrams you can count on him spitting upon even before he sees or knows anything about it. Yet Abrams' movies still rake in money by the 100's of millions so clearly plenty of people (including me) don't see eye to eye with Bob on Abrams' work.

He does have a track record of fanboy-istic love/hate spiels. Come on, you've got to agree with that?

[small]Um...right?[/small]

 

[UncleAsriel]

I saw this a few days, ago, and while I can't say it was bad, I was disappointed.

What made District 9 work so well was the worldbuilding being detail, the characterization compelling, and the world changing dramatically over the course of the film while remaining morally complex. The finale saw the world change in abig way, but it didn't tie up everything neatly. Many problems remained after the film ended, and it's left to the audience (and characters) to work out how to deal with the aftermath.

Elysium felt too trite for its own good. Characters were fairly shallow (especially on the villain's side) and its conclusion was far too simplistic. Jodie Foster's character felt more like political strawman rather than a beleivable character. The problems facing its world were too easily resolved at the denoument, with the finale with the robots deploying in those ships with the special almost hilariously blunt. I was almost tempted to shout out "Thanks, Obama!" at one particular scene near the end

I even found the logistics of some problems weird.

Spoiler

Why have bearded psychopaths use ground-to-air missiles to deal with invading shuttles bound for Elysium? Wouldn't just having missiles on the station be much better? Why does Matt Damon get afflicted with a brain-scrambling virus which was killing him, only to have him crawl out of the wrecked car and go hand-to-hand with Kruger a minute later?

I had the sneaking suspicion the writers forced the characters on the Blockbuster Plot express for no other reason that it kept action moving, logic be damned.

The movie could have been improved if the baddies were faced with the problems one might get with managing an environment like Elysium.

Spoiler

Mention the cost of those new healing beds, and how difficult they were to manufacture, or how there's no way that all of Elysium's tech can be equitably distributed to all the civvies on Earth. Have Jodie Foster's character be less of a scheming ***** and more of a genuinely concerned hawkish minister who would mention the very real problem of what would happen if every human on the planet could theoretically come up to Elysium and do whatever they wanted unthwarted by robocops. Hell, deal with some of the aftermath of the world (like warlords controlling access to those healship landing sites, or Elysium's verdant biosphere being crippled by overexploitation) would have given the film more gravitas than it had.

It's a Elysium is by no means terriblem, but it's by no means excellent, either. Barring Sharlto Copley's alternatively awesome and creepy part of Kruger, it's none too memorable a films, and that's sad. I hope it does well at the box office, but only so that Blomkamp can put his talents to use in other, future projects without the thumbprints of without studio meddling

 

[level27smartass]

Do you even socioeconomic? When wealth is concentrated in hands of few that means they literally own means of production. Now imagine whats cheaper giving your employs fair wages or Exploiting them. Now exploiting people is cheap but diffcult work because they can just up leave however since you own mostly everything that means you control labor or lack there off. Detroit was a very wealthy city back in the day but your only option was working for on the auto manufacturers or a place that relies indirectly on income from said Auto manufactures. Now what happened was the CEO's found something cheaper than exploiting domestic-workers; exploiting foreign workers by outsourcing. So with cheaper labor there was no reason to keep the American Factories open so wealthy in Detroit left along with factories. Whats left is a poor local economy and a bunch of poor people. So its not that rich knows how to lead they just have the money to fix it and in capitalistic society that's what you need to succeed.

OK, fine, fine, but how does the rich people packing up and moving to a space station make all of that worse? My guess, now that I've thought about it some more, is that it didn't really; the point is more that the situation on earth had already gone to hell, and the rich people moved into outer space to distance themselves from it, literally. Like the Axiom in WALL-E except it's just a few people instead of the entire human race.

Wealth is finite or it use to be currently many nation use fiat currency meaning the money you have your pocket is a federal IOU. Wealth isnt just cash its property and recources lets say the people who control land and resources become disconnected from society vis a via gated community or orbital space station. By leaving there taking with there aquired wealth and resources out of economy.

 

[Falsename]

Why do I bother listening to a man who doesn't seem to know how to review a movie properly?

Bob is always leaning in the exact opposite direction of the other 99% of reviewers and audiences. Bad movie=Good movie for him.

And pick a freaking accent! I don't even know where the hell you'd have to live to talk like that.... It's attrocious. Stop trying to be Yahtzee. You're not Yahtzee.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I know some people are not going to like this movie because it has the radical message of: Everybody should have access to quality health care. Basically, Matt Damon's character is the Robin Hood of medicine. It really shouldn't be that controversial.

Message aside, it's a quality action blockbuster. It has a few things in there that makes me mourn for the Halo movie that never was.

 

[pearcinator]

I don't know what everyone's complaining about (although I am not American so I don't know their politics) I thought this movie was fucking awesome! Neill Blomkamp has made a name for himself now with his own gritty sci-fi take (gory scenes? YES PLEASE!!!)

If there is one thing to criticize about this movie is that the shaky cam in some of the fight scenes made it really hard to tell what was going on. Matt Damon must just LOVE shaky-cam and want it in all of his movies...

 

[scotth266]

The only reason I'm going to see Elysium in the end is because I've seen District 9, and even then it'll be a close thing.

While I liked District 9, its beginning is one of the most ham-fisted intros in the history of movies. It was only when we finally got to the cat-food vs people-food scene that I became interested, if only because it demonstrated that there was actual reason to fear the aliens - and shortly afterward the film actually started confronting its own issues rather than just trying to wave a huge "RACISM IS BAD, M'KAY?" sign in my face. The first ten minutes of District 9 suck. The remaining portion is great, because it's not trying to send the message as much - it's focusing instead on the action, and while the aliens are victims, they're certainly not blameless.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like this film's going to make an effort to go much farther than "RICH PEOPLE ARE DIRTBAGS HOARDIN' THE RESOURCES, MAN!" Every review I've read about the film and all the scenes I've seen indicate nothing more's going on here, no hidden layers, no double meanings - just a bunch of rich people being dicks for the sake of it.

If the movie actually has anything of merit to say then I might be interested... but the trailers certainly aren't getting me as excited as I should be. It's got the right aesthetics to rustle my jimmies - I love me some good hard-soft-sci-fi (Looper and District 9 for example) but it's losing me on how propoganda-ish it feels.

 

[RTK1576]

Why do I bother listening to a man who doesn't seem to know how to review a movie properly?

Bob is always leaning in the exact opposite direction of the other 99% of reviewers and audiences. Bad movie=Good movie for him.

And pick a freaking accent! I don't even know where the hell you'd have to live to talk like that.... It's attrocious. Stop trying to be Yahtzee. You're not Yahtzee.

Why DO you? You only show up to complain about Bob and make sweeping generalizations that lack any supporting evidence. A rational person would've stopped watching him and moved on with his life.

 

[RTK1576]

1+2: Both of these are completely off base because no one is saying that anyone "shouldn't be allowed" to do anything, but I can understand why some people find the idea of Matt Damon, a multi-millionaire actor who lives in a $15 million mansion, starring in a movie in which he's the champion of the poor. Also bear in mind that Damon doesn't exactly shy away from getting involved in political and social issues, and thus he contributes to the "limousine liberal" stereotype (ie. the hypocrisy you mentioned).

So, what is the hypocrisy there?

Are liberals not allowed to be wealthy? The "limousine liberal" stereotype has always been pretty much bullshit, a trope used by right-wingers to discredit liberalism without having an actual argument with any substance.

I think the issue here is that many liberals manage to be financially successful, but the right-wing can't accept this, because liberals are supposed to be dirty hippies, and the idea that liberals can manage their finances successfully is a kind of heresy, so the only rational explanation (for such irrational people) is that liberals are either corrupt, or hypocritical. Never mind the fact that liberalism isn't actually anti-wealth, that's just a narrative made up by those who oppose it.

Actually, taken as a whole, liberals, on average, make more money than conservatives (suggested reading, "Who really cares", by Arthur Brooks).

Regardless, the difference between the two is that conservatives with money don't usually scream for the Government to give more money to the poor, while liberals with money do. So this begs the obvious question of (we'll go back to Matt Damon) "if Matt Damon cares so much about the plight of the poor, why doesn't he sell his $15 million house, move into a $1000 a month studio apartment, and give away the rest of his money?". No one asks Mitt Romney that question because he's flat-out said that he doesn't believe in income redistribution.

So, again, your argument is "If someone whose is rich wants to help the less fortunate, the only way they gain creditability is to not be rich."

Do you realize how dumb that argument is? I guess not, as you avoided addressing my rebuttal.

And, gee, you notice that Romney isn't President after saying things like you just did. Go figure.

 

[Falsename]

Why do I bother listening to a man who doesn't seem to know how to review a movie properly?

Bob is always leaning in the exact opposite direction of the other 99% of reviewers and audiences. Bad movie=Good movie for him.

And pick a freaking accent! I don't even know where the hell you'd have to live to talk like that.... It's attrocious. Stop trying to be Yahtzee. You're not Yahtzee.

Why DO you? You only show up to complain about Bob and make sweeping generalizations that lack any supporting evidence. A rational person would've stopped watching him and moved on with his life.

Honestly, sometimes I get bored and view a video for fun. And if people didn't give feedback then you'd get everyone running around here with an ego larger than a Emu egg. If someone gives a bad review, you let 'em know it and hope they'll be a little more careful next time. A wider range of criticism will lead to a more average score.

 

[Korsgaard]

It was decent, though nothing revolutionary like I'd hoped.

On the plus side, the film itself looked incredible, especially the design of the space colony and the robots. Sharlto Copley chews the scenery as the supporting villain, and proves the character highlight of the film, and I really hope this gets him more big roles. Also, it was a hell of a lot more subtle than other films dealing with the same themes.

On the downside, the acting was bad from the major actors - Matt Damon gave one of his blandest performances in recent memory, which says something, and Jodi Foster gave a performance worthy of a Razzie - the only thing keeping her from having given the worst performance in a sci-fi film this year is the existence of After Earth.

Also, the script could have used some more polish, as could the theme work. Though I give it points for subtlety, the points about healthcare/immigration were still clumsy, and for a dystopia, it needed a few more dashes of true dystopia.

Overall though, a decent movie, worth a matinee on a rainy day, or a rental when it hits netflix.