Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

I thought this was a godawful movie. Yes, its politics were "good" in the sense that it oriented dramatic identification with a dirty, mostly nonwhite (though Matt Damon...) underclass in favor of healthcare, amnesty, etc. But the evolving generic playfulness, the humor, the flexible ways that the allegory & metaphor could be interpreted, and the weirdness that made District 9 a really fascinating film (IMO) are wholly absent here. Instead we get the most barebones and hackneyed sketches of "backstory" and "worldbuilding" that ultimately just serve a very, very conventional summer action/SF blockbuster.

This strikes me as a film with a mildly intriguing premise that nothing else at all lives up to. I'm open to great commercial genre films but this simply isn't one. (And most blockbusters these days aren't.) As with Pacific Rim I have no idea why some critics seem to think there's anything worthwhile in Elysium.

Here is the Variety review of Elysium.

http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/fi ... 200569714/

Some excerpts:

"Result confirms the helmer as much more than a one-hit wunderkind and should easily surpass “District 9’s” $210 million worldwide haul, if not its massive profit margin."

"Easier, too, for 'Elysium' to advance one of the more openly socialist political agendas of any Hollywood movie in memory, beating the drum loudly not just for universal healthcare, but for open borders, unconditional amnesty and the abolition of class distinctions as well. But Blomkamp never makes it clear how, if overpopulation and pollution are what got us into this mess in the first place, moving everyone up to Elysium would make for a sustainable solution; he just wants us to take it on faith that it would."