Bill C’s Review – 2.5 out of 5
I had high expectations for Elysium after watching coming attractions for this movie all summer. It has Matt Damon, who has been great in action movies with the Bourne series, and is directed by Neil Blomkamp who made the highly entertaining District 9. This movie was ok, but did not live up to my expectations.
The 1% have now left earth to live in a utopia orbiting earth with machines that can cure any medical problem, while the downtrodden 99% struggle to live on a polluted, decimated earth. Elysium is protected by ‘Homeland Security’ run by Jodie Foster. I usually like Jodie Foster. While she successfully comes across as evil, she has a really weird accent and overall I didn’t like her performance at all.
Matt Damon’s character has had a tough life and is trying to get his life together. But due to circumstances beyond his control, he needs to join up with the resistance to try to reach Elysium and save the 99%. Damon, as usual is good. I also liked many of the action scenes. The first half was better than the second half, and I didn’t really like the ending. SPOILER ALERT ON This also had one of my pet peeves on movies with computers being key parts of the plot: when computer screens have random numbers and characters scrolling on and off the screen faster than any human being can read them, it is not possible for the person who has never been exposed to that program to figure out what the program does, how it does it, and to immediately provide his desired input to the program in seconds to save mankind. SPOILER ALERT OFF
This movie joins my growing list of this summer’s films that have robots! This movie is ok…but if you haven’t seen it, stay home and watch District 9 instead.
