Summer Blomkamp

Elysium
Trading Spaces
Official Website | Trailers & Mo 
R | 109 min

Dude, how hugo AND boss was Neill Blomkamp‘s District 9???  SO HUGO!   SO BOSS!!  A smart sci-fi flick that felt fresh and new, and not only won over the nerds, but also the normal peoples, the critics and even the Academy Awards (FOUR NOMINATIONS!!).  So how is Neilllliel Blomkampspopop ever gonna follow something like that up?  No District 10, for now, and the man couldn’t make a Halo movie happen, and he even passed on helming Star Trek.  So he made up Elysium, a tale from the year 2154!!  And he’s got Matt Damon AND Jodie Foster on board, AND A SPACE WORLD THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THOSE CRAZY SEXY COOL NASA’S SPACE COLONY ART THINGS FROM THE 1970S!!!  OMG, HOW IS THIS NOT GOING TO BE THE GREATESTTESTEST MOVIE EVER!???!??!??!

It isn’t/wasn’t

That sucks.  It really does, cause we expected so much, but still, even if Elysium is no District 10, it’s STILL head and shoulders and thighs above a bunch of other sci-fi bad future garbage movies.  OK, so we tend to say that about plenty movies – finding them good when compared to garbage movies – but we really liked Elysium, but just wish it was the be-all and end-all, instead of a solid-ish poor vs rich on land and in space movie that seemed to rush itself to a conclusion that wasn’t all that conclusive

There are two problems

Problem #1 – there’s no real drama, even though it feels like there’s drama going on in the movie.  In the beginning, you meet Matt Damon as an orphaned boy, and his BFF (grown up as Alice Braga), and he pledges to her that one day they will leave earth and go to Elysium – that place orbiting earth where the rich live far from earth’s ills, and can cure any ills with a super awesome curing future machine!  Well guess what, grown up Matt Damon is stuck on earth with a crappy job and doesn’t seem to be going to Elysium anytime soon.  But guess what, actually, you don’t have to guess – he will get to Elysium and he was also get Alice Braga there too, even if they haven’t really spoken in years.  So basically there’s predetermined destiny, and all we have to do is watch it happen.  Standing in his way of reaching his goal are bounty-ish hunter Sharlto Copley (no more Mr Nice Guy, like he was in D9), and bidness man William Fichtner and his 9-head, and Jodie Foster, who’s like a J Edgar Hoover of space, and she has a really dumb accent, and basically she’s worthless to this movie.  Helping him are Diego Luna and Wagner Moura, and the script.  But there’s gotta be more to it besides juss getting to Elysium, right?  Well, there’s pressing matters that serve as motivation, but who cares

Problem #2 – Elysium itself.  THIS PLACE IS AWESOME, and yet we spend so little time there before things get going.  Why is this place so awesome?  We know it looks awesome, but all we know about it is that rich people live there, there’s a machine that cures stuff, and Jodie Foster is lame there.  By the time Damon and whomever touch down on the space colony, we don’t even really care.  He could have landed at space Disney World and we would have been more jazzed (imagine Space Mountain… IN SPACE!!!).  Wish there was a prequel to Elysium where we saw it being built and how the first rich people settled there and did rich space things, like bang hot chicks… IN SPACE!!!

But still, it’s mos def Blomkamp’s world, and we’d rather live or visit or be scared of his world than live or visit or be scared of other garbage filmmaker’s bad bad future worlds

Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers

Elysium is inter-mostly-stellar at a theater near jews tonight!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…