The film is a roller coaster ride of emotion with Matt Damon's Max as the central POV. There's a lot of cool moments in the film but I feel that there's a missing piece in the movie that could've made it really, really stunning. Still, as it is, the movie is a smart addition to the sci-fi genre and poses an important question. "What gives the rich the right to deprive the poor?"
THE GOOD
- Matt Damon's take on the character was nice. Not awesome just nice. Blomkamp and co. definitely made the right choice for casting Damon as the down-on-his-luck Max. The actor channels 'tortured hero' pretty good.
- It's nice to see Diego Luna back in Hollywood movies again. The Y Tu Mama Tambien star has been absent for a while now and seeing him on screen was nice. Too bad the dude hasn't really broken into Hollywood big leagues.
- Sharlto Copely was a great villain here in Elysium. His Krueger is menacing and annoying at the same time. Plus points for his insane looking gear which includes a force field and a sinister sword/machete.
- The visuals here were top notch. Really worked extremely well with the IMAX technology. Giving twice the dose of greatness because it played on the Blomkamp's penchant for using wide angle establishing shots.
- Another Blomkamp related remark. Props to the director's consistency when doing sci-fi stuff. He just love dumpsite/ Payatas looking setting. Made me suddenly wish that Blomkamp's location crew discovers Payatas and other outlying dumpsites and use that for the setting of his other sci-fi flicks.
- I love the meta/ visual representation of the social classes here. The rich are so far away, so isolated and so ABOVE everything in Elysium while the poor live in crappy living quarters where they die needlessly. That actually is a good mirroring of current events and society. I'll give like a hundred points on Blomkamp for doing this movie.
THE BAD
- Seriously they marketed the film as a movie with Jodie Foster but the actress was barely there. Hell, William Fitchner had more stuff going on here than Foster. I'd say that was a total waste of good casting. They could have tried somebody else to deliver all those lines Foster just wasted. And if you're hoping for a juicier villain role for this Academy nominated actress, you're in for a hell of a disappointment.
- For the love of god I had a hard time understanding Copely's dialogues. Yeah, the actor played Krueger pretty damn well but they could've toned down the accent by a bit. Another case of good acting thrown down by bad accents.
- If you're expecting more slam bang action here in ELYSIUM you'll seriously be disappointed because whatever trailer you've seen, those are the only key action scenes. They should've left out other stuff like this for when people actually see the movie and not before.
Verdict: (- B) I'm good with ELYSIUM. Something OK, but not something to write home about. It's a decent film with lots of things going on and a big social commentary as well. But if you'll be seeing the movie for the sci-fi fight scenes and exoskeleton man breaking down robots then you'll surely be disappointed. BUT AGAIN, I can't stress enough that the movie is exceedingly good if you don't throw it amongst other science fiction films that came out lately.
Special thanks to Columbia Pictures Philippines for the invitation and for the photos. ELYSIUM now showing!
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