Elysium - GateFans member preview commentary (mzzz)

[Joelist]

Um...yup. The commentary in the film is about as subtle as having the director whacking you repeatedly in the head with a sledge hammer whilst screaming his political messages in your face. Ridiculously heavy handed.

 

[Backstep]

Oh dear....I just saw this, and now I completely understand why you chose to use a rare occasion to use a descriptor like "turd". You could not have been more accurate with that term. I mean, what did I just watch? This movie is an unabashed immigration reform movie, specifically addressing the issue of illegal immigration into the United States by Latinos from Mexico. It couples this with the idea that once the rich whites are no longer in control of earth, it will be overrun by blacks and Latinos (mostly Latinos). But on Elysium, everyone is European and/or white. I would not even mention this "race" element, but it is quite sharply emphasized in this film. What's more, almost all of the remaining inhabitants of earth are Latinos and a smattering of blacks, and on Elysium there are mostly all whites....where did the majority of Humanity go in this film? That would be the Asians. Very little representation of them in this film. But that is just the social commentary portion of this review.

The cinematography, quite simply, SUCKED. Too much movement, to many cuts in scenes, bad lighting, the works. The space station Elysium is a thing of beauty as far as design, with an open air inner ring which is protected by a shield of some sort to enclose an atmosphere. We are "treated" to French-speaking, upper crust citizens of Elysium sipping wine, impeccably dressed and what not...but the central characters Jodie Foster and Matt Damon just dont pull this off well at all. The characters are poorly developed, and the supporting characters are even worse. They did get the look right, making Los Angeles look like some third world slum (presumably what the world would look like if Latinos ran the city? ). The flying shuttles and other tech looked convincingly weathered and worn, but the OVERWHELMING social commentary was what dragged this film down.

In a nutshell, this movie is about illegal immigration into the United States from the side of the illegals, trying to make a case for a path to US citizenship even if it means revolution. Not a message I am interested in hearing, and definitely not seeing in my movies. Whatever my feelings on this issue, it was a poor choice for the core story of this movie. I give it two thumbs down.

View attachment 28667

View attachment 28668

What I got from this was health care not immigration issues. All the people making the trip to the station were the sick, injured or infirm. When everyone was added as citizens the hospital ships were dispatched to Earth not just LA.

As a whole, I agree, it's a turd.

 

[shavedape]

It's sad when so much production goes into something that ends up being a huge turd.

 

[Overmind One]

What I got from this was health care not immigration issues. All the people making the trip to the station were the sick, injured or infirm. When everyone was added as citizens the hospital ships were dispatched to Earth not just LA.

As a whole, I agree, it's a turd.

Well, everyone was speaking Spanish on earth (as well as English), but the vast majority of all the people on earth were Latinos...even the whites who lived there spoke it. There was the Catholic nun...you cant be a WASP and be a Catholic. Also, the majority of Americans are not Catholic. Catholic nuns on earth in the mid 21st century? Not likely. The whole "undocumented shuttles", the deportation process and requirement for citizenship to get healthcare...how could you miss that? The goal in getting to Elysium was to gain access to healthcare and the healing chambers, and citizenship was required to get it. This is the story of illegal immigrants and US citizenship. I dont think the makers of this film even cared what the rest of the world thought or understood from the movie. They shoved it in your face every minute of the movie...indeed, it was the core story of the film! Healthcare and immigration are married issues in the US. Non-citizens are denied healthcare beyond the basics in America. I cant remember if you are American or not...are you? I cant see this movie making much sense to a non-American.

 

[Overmind One]

More on this...

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/08/elysium-review/68100/

So, yeah, back to the bad. In addition to the corny tricks and gimmicks that Blomkamp uses to gild his cluttered, ultra-violent (several people gorily explode in the movie) action sequences, Elysium suffers from a dearth of thoughtfulness. The allegory he's working with here is about immigration and health care, and while those are indeed pressing topics ripe for spinning into dark and insisting fables, here the messaging is too literal and blunt. A ship full of illegals lands on (in?) Elysium and they flee like immigrants across the U.S./Mexico border, only to be brutally and inhumanely captured. Basic healthcare is hardly available on Earth, whereas on Elysium they have machines that can cure anything, essentially granting immortality. It makes sense that Blomkamp would feel the need to delocalize his themes for his first big studio movie, but he's made them too broad, too general. He wields them clumsily and arrives at too many simple conclusions. (Undocumented immigrants are people too, everyone should have healthcare.) It's admirable that Blomkamp wants to say something amidst all the crunching and booming, but his themes feel distressingly under-considered this time. Where District 9 soared with genuinely stirring sadness and triumph, Elysium dully editorializes in between by-the-numbers action scenes.

If he was hoping to cash in on this issue, he failed miserably. I am all for taking care of our citizens, but the "cause" for allowing all people healthcare (even illegal immigrants) is not popular in the US. You just cant allow that, any more than you can open your home to all bums and beggars on the streets and give them all your food and allow them to take up residence in your bedrooms. In the US, this dynamic is unique in the world where other countries are dealing with other immigration issues. It was such a heavyhanded approach, and it just was a real waste of film to make this stupid movie.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Well, everyone was speaking Spanish on earth (as well as English), but the vast majority of all the people on earth were Latinos...even the whites who lived there spoke it. There was the Catholic nun...you cant be a WASP and be a Catholic. Also, the majority of Americans are not Catholic. Catholic nuns on earth in the mid 21st century? Not likely. The whole "undocumented shuttles", the deportation process and requirement for citizenship to get healthcare...how could you miss that? The goal in getting to Elysium was to gain access to healthcare and the healing chambers, and citizenship was required to get it. This is the story of illegal immigrants and US citizenship. I dont think the makers of this film even cared what the rest of the world thought or understood from the movie. They shoved it in your face every minute of the movie...indeed, it was the core story of the film! Healthcare and immigration are married issues in the US. Non-citizens are denied healthcare beyond the basics in America. I cant remember if you are American or not...are you? I cant see this movie making much sense to a non-American.

Christians are still #1 by a wide margin, with Catholics making up about 50% of all Christianity.

Screw this movie and its healthcare message.

Aside:

I'm f**king tired of this "me! me! me!" attitude from the loudest bunch of idiots in this country. They cling to that goddamned bible like its a f**king science book and instruction manual on life but ignore the most basic principles in it when it suits their needs, like taking care of the poor and the weak.

 

[Joelist]

Like I said earlier, having social commentary can be good and cool IF it is woven into and serves a good story. In this turd everything was serving the social commentary which had the subtlety of whacking the viewer in the bicuspids with a baseball bat.

 

[Overmind One]

Christians are still #1 by a wide margin, with Catholics making up about 50% of all Christianity.

Screw this movie and its healthcare message.

Aside:

I'm f**king tired of this "me! me! me!" attitude from the loudest bunch of idiots in this country. They cling to that goddamned bible like its a f**king science book and instruction manual on life but ignore the most basic principles in it when it suits their needs, like taking care of the poor and the weak.

Yes, Catholics are still the largest group in Christianity, and I believe it is more than 50%. But in the United States they are a minority at the moment...that will change, since the Latinos (from every Latino country including the black ones) are Catholics by a huge majority. Over 80%. If these "Christians" had any decency, the poor and the weak would not have been created by Christian materialism and greed in the first place.

I find it offensive that our military budget and national entity is termed "Defense". The Department of Defense spends much more time on the OFFENSE than anything else. Defense against whom? Perhaps Mexico will throw tortillas over all our aircraft and nuclear missiles to try and prevent them from functioning? I wasn't aware that out national borders were in the middle east. Defense of freedom using the military is a sham. If anything, they are defending oppression and preventing freedom.

 

[shavedape]

So, just to be clear, this movie isn't even "good" enough to rent for a few laughs at how bad it is?

 

[Overmind One]

So, just to be clear, this movie isn't even "good" enough to rent for a few laughs at how bad it is?

If there were any laughs, I would say yes. But this movie is very unfunny. It relentlessly hammers the immigration/healthcare issue to the viewer, never letting up for even one minute. The special effects and very poorly constructed character interactions all are wasted bludgeoning the idea of insensitivity to the plight of the "illegal" earth people, and the caricature of the wealthy and successful on Elysium is a cliche. The stereotypes in this movie abound.

 

[YJ02]

I don't get the hostility towards this film. I watched it today I think it was one of the better movies I have watched this year IN THAT it wasn't as bad as the others (Dredd, Red Dawn, Total Recall),
the only sci fi movie that was better then this was probably CLOUD ATLAS. Agreed there is a quality gap between the two of them that is very big, but given the other sci fi options we have had this yr (film and TV) Elysium wasn't that bad.

Encouraging, yes?

I liked how they showed integration of tech even in people who are poor or lower middle class and living in the "hood". It kind of blends with the poor of today who claim poverty but have smart phones.

I would have liked to have seen how the "haves" still on Earth were living-there must be some, not all of them could fit on Elysium, could they?

It wasn't comic-bookish, no outlandish super-powers that make a man totally invulnerable or weapons that are unstoppable.

Yes, there was a bit too much of the health care issue thing going on--did TPTB not know of our ACA future? Or is this how they envision it to play out? I mean they worked in other natural progressions of today-pollution, war, poverty, class strife,etc.

At the end,when he was "downloaded" I wonder if they meant for his consciousness to be downloaded as well? For some reason, that was the first thing I thought of when the scene played.

 

[mzzz]

Gonna have to go with joelist on this one, the social commentary was on the level of a teenager. Visuals were good, the message and story was lacking.

Yes, I'm back, was busy this semester.

Did you not catch Gravity yongjin? You sorta had to have seen this one in theaters though because the visuals were a huge part. I thought that was the best sci-fi movie this year, although one could make the argument it was more realistic sci than sci-fi.

 

[Gatefan1976]

Jmoz???
Is that you??

 

[Overmind One]

Gonna have to go with joelist on this one, the social commentary was on the level of a teenager. Visuals were good, the message and story was lacking.

Yes, I'm back, was busy this semester.

Did you not catch Gravity yongjin? You sorta had to have seen this one in theaters though because the visuals were a huge part. I thought that was the best sci-fi movie this year, although one could make the argument it was more realistic sci than sci-fi.

Welcome back mzzz!



I really did not like Elysium. But Gravity was good, like you said. It bordered on a docudrama...something like the Europa Report. I would watch it again.

Good to see you here.

 

[Joelist]

I still need to see Gravity but have high hopes.

I also was ticked off at Elysium. I like my sifi to have social commentary woven into but subordinate to telling a good story. In Elysium it is WAY too heavy handed - I felt like the writers were lecturing me which to me is a total turnoff.

 

[mzzz]

Thanks, missed sci-fi and talking sci-fi for a good while. Fun to be back.

You might not like Gravity joelist; it was mostly visual and the story was more a metaphorical journey. You sorta have to see it in 3D. But I was completely engrossed the entire time. And I think this movie might have set or just be the new standard for incorporating effective 3D into space based movies. All other 3D tend to be tacked on for added sales preying on stupid consumers.

I wanna see where this goes in future space based sci-fi flicks. The way they did the debris field and collisions was just extremely well done. It wasn't some explosion and all the remnants just disappear like most explosions in movies. Hopefully someone comes up with a good sci-fi story using these things effectively.

 

[mzzz]

Jmoz???
Is that you??

This is not the jmoz you're looking for. *waves hand*

 

[Overmind One]

Thanks, missed sci-fi and talking sci-fi for a good while. Fun to be back.

You might not like Gravity joelist; it was mostly visual and the story was more a metaphorical journey. You sorta have to see it in 3D. But I was completely engrossed the entire time. And I think this movie might have set or just be the new standard for incorporating effective 3D into space based movies. All other 3D tend to be tacked on for added sales preying on stupid consumers.

I wanna see where this goes in future space based sci-fi flicks. The way they did the debris field and collisions was just extremely well done. It wasn't some explosion and all the remnants just disappear like most explosions in movies. Hopefully someone comes up with a good sci-fi story using these things effectively.

Alas, I have not had the fortune of seeing it in 3D. But now I would like to.

 

[mzzz]

Think it's still playing in some theaters, but Smaug might have taken over most of them. I saw it in 3D Imax.

 

[Overmind One]

Think it's still playing in some theaters, but Smaug might have taken over most of them. I saw it in 3D Imax.

Perhaps they will release a 3D BluRay? I have 3D capability on my TV. Wont be near the experience you had, but at least I will get an idea, since I have seen it already.