Elysium

Did this start off as a Halo film then Blomkamp took over and bolted on his South African dichotomy society blurb all over it?

  On 8/30/2013 at 8:29 PM, Echolalia said:

Did this start off as a Halo film then Blomkamp took over and bolted on his South African dichotomy society blurb all over it?

This time it's all about Mexican immigrants and healthcare, the uneven distribution of wealth, etc. etc. The movie was so short none of that was really delved into in any insightful way. It's all about scenes where people are shooting the shit out of things.

Just watched it, movie is filled with cliches which im pretty tired of seeing. ( i mean i predicted everything that happened as soon as all the characters were introduced)

Do you think its the producers and executives who force filmmakers to put these cliches in? i mean, do they understand that they are making movies with potential so bland and blah, do hey even care ?$$$

or maybe is lazy film making.

cool effects tho

6.5/10

I haven't finished it as the dvd spazzed out at the point the bad dude had kidnapped Damon's girl. Anyway had seen enough, this is really the worst kind of filmmaking. Sorry to see this from one of Sean Booth's "heros", lol. Blomkamp should stick to overseeing vfx, rather than (writing?)/directing. With the crutch of "found footage" that he used in Dist. 9 gone, it's clear he's clumsy and cliche-prone.

As others have said the plot points were utterly predictable, but the parts that should have been fairly easy to explain were muddled, namely just how the data in the rich guy's head would work, what the drama was over its encryption, why they had to "try a second time" to get it from him...the idea seemed simple enough - he needed some special code to change the election rules in the Elysium computer, he would have to deliver it in person, but the rebels got ahold of it. Yet the way it was plotted out, directed and edited made that needlessly confusing. Same with why he needed the robot suit, etc...the plotting felt like it was out-of-synch most of the time, and needlessly padded just to get the players from point A to B.

It's too bad as the set-up was rich enough that a good film could have been made from it. It just needed more "flesh to be put on the bones" by a skilled writer. Generally it was too rushed and all the characterization was cliche (the scruffy hero trying to break from his criminal past, the caring nurse girlfriend, the shifty crimelord who is all smiles, the sleazy grinning merc, etc), which removed any emotional impact. Blomkamp needs to go back to say, Cameron films like Terminator/Terminator 2, the Abyss, to see how drama and action can be successfully married, cuz this ain't it.

For example, a few quick-n-easy ways to build suspense and the audience-gives-a-shit factor: don't show the interior of Elysium from the start. Instead, build up the relationship between Damon and the people he knows, show his interactions with the "boat people" who get shot down in the next act. Show more of his daily life, and the struggle of existence back down on earth. Then when the boat people get to Elysium, show the wonder and amazement of them discovering it up-close for the first time, just as the audience is discovering it, and then that wonder turning to horror. Etc. Blomkamp needs to learn how to get inside the characters' head more (this includes writing better dialogue for them).

Jodie Foster's accent was indeed pretty remarkable (bad or cheesy fun, hard to tell).