Elysium
ELYSIUM, a science-fiction allegory on illegal immigration and access to health care, has plenty of heart; what it lacks is art, leaving it as mechanical as Matt Damon in an exoskeleton and as false as Jodie Foster’s silly accent. Clichés abound, from the villains to the voices (poor people speak Spanish, the rich switch effortlessly from English to French, and crazy bad guys sing in Afrikaans); the climactic showdown is visually unintelligible; and the ceaseless soundtrack needs to give it a rest. If you’d hoped for more from Neill Blomkamp, the writer/director of the wonderful DISTRICT 9, so did I. –YSM
Sorry to hear this! I was looking forward to it. Guess it goes into the DVD list lol
I wouldn’t write it off completely, Jay. But it did leave me cold, and it certainly isn’t as good as DISTRICT 9. –CFC
Spot on Chris. Jodie Foster’s accent was distractingly bad. Matt Damon for all his hyped working out prior to filming looked ok not amazing. Disappointing movie overall.
Did they hype his working out? I didn’t know that. Anyway, too much of the film didn’t ring true for me; it read as caricature, rather than a convincing future reality. (A minor example: Jodie Foster’s character is a major bigwig in Elysium’s government…so when the President of Elysium needs to see her immediately, what happens? She gets paged on a public address system. Um, no.)
I got a laugh out of all the women in Elysium’s black ops command central, in tight little dresses and blonde pompadours as they worked meaningless control panels. That was just goofy.