Popular reviews

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  Review by MenOnFilm ★★★½ 6

  Proper health care is science fiction to Americans.

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  Review by FilmApe ★★★★★ 78

  I'm a dick. I've suspected as much over the past few months, and tonight I officially recognized this fact about myself. In the five minutes after this movie was over, I was able to piss someone I saw this with off so much that they just stopped talking to me all together. This is entirely because I called them on their negative comments about the film. I'm specifically using the wording "negative comments" as I feel criticisms denotes something valid, where as negative comments is more descriptive of someone's personal skewed view on something. Now an example of a criticism of Elysium would be calling out Jodie Foster's performance for being too hamy and put on, not to mention some…

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  Review by Todd Gaines ★★★ 56

  Elysium, a place in Space where your tanning bed can cure all sickness and disease, but of course it's only for the rich, until Boston Bad Boy Matt Damon tries to change the rules, in Neill Blomkamp's sophomore effort that's nowhere near District 9, but it does highlight Blomkamp's talent as a gifted filmmaker. It's hard to love Elysium, but it sure looks pretty. Very nice visuals. The robots look cool as fuck. The gunplay kicks ass. Matt Damon looks like he's on roids. It's like Will Hunting started lifting weights, and wasn't a math genius. Jodie Foster, gets the award for most annoying politician in a movie directed by Neill Blomkamp. Pick your least favorite political figure, and I…

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★ 4

  I still can't believe they let Sharlto Copley get away with his performance in this, everyone else involved is making an ostensibly serious sci-fi movie and then every few minutes groundskeeper Willie shows up with a katana, it's inspiring honestly. Admirably ambitious, stellar FX work, would be a pretty cool pulp movie if Blomkamp wasn't a terrible writer and could chill the fuck out a bit with the action coverage.

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  Review by Daniel Kibbe ★★ 10

  This is the most disappointed I've been with a movie in a long time. Elysium is a mess, plain and simple. It had so many great ideas and talent at its core, and it squanders it all. It features an extremely lazy screenplay, poorly developed characters, terrible performances, and boring plot. It's a film that wanders on the border of decency, and quickly falls into despair.

  When I first read the general concept of Elysium, I hoped it would be like director Neil Blomkamp's other feature, District 9. I hoped it would be a unique sci-fi film, with a substantial amount of political and social commentary. The film sets up a good way to explain this commentary, but runs it…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★ 12

  either a dull, dreadfully told and politically asinine blockbuster *or* the most mind-blowing documentary I've ever seen.

  seriously shameful storytelling here. neat tactile design does little to compensate for pathetic world-building / a complete lack of characterization. i mean, this shit makes OBLIVION look like fucking BLADE RUNNER. this is why you don't give giant production deals to people who make tech demoes masquerading as short films. and yes, i know blomkamp's debut feature was (ludicrously) nominated for best picture, but my point still stands.

  despite the mega-budget, it looks considerably cheaper than DISTRICT 9, because all the money in the world can't match the authenticity of the joburg slums.

  the action is completely incoherent, and even a good face-splosion is ultimately undone. and hey jodie foster, gary oldman called, he said "tone it down."

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  Review by adambolt ★★★

  bane has officially been dethroned from having the funniest bad guy voice

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★ 8

  reading all the reviews on here for this from 10 years ago is a real barometer for how much people took original sci-fi films for granted during the early 2010s -- elysium, edge of tomorrow, oblivion, audiences in that era were awash in genre riches compared to today, where it is increasingly impossible for these movies to exist on a big budget scale -- just look at how badly the creator bombed. in the span of ten years we've gone from these being a mainstay part of the hollywood ecosystem to science fiction being a vanishing outlier.

  which isn't to say that elysium itself is perfect simply because it looks and acts like nothing that gets put in multiplexes today…

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  Review by 🎥 Kemper ★★★

  Overall, I enjoyed it for the most part, the movie got really cool at some parts but in the last half of the film it drags a few times. The film as a whole is a really cool idea and I personally got heavy Call of Duty Advanced Warfare vibes from it. While I find Jodie Foster to be an absolutely phenomenal actress normally, in this movie she really didn’t fit. In fact all the villains were really forgettable in the film. I did enjoy Matt Damon for the most part, a lot of the action sequences were really fun to watch and it got pretty gory at times. I would recommend this to any fan of the Sci-Fi Action Thriller genre but I wouldn’t go in expecting a masterpiece by any means. It’s definitely worth it to check the movie out if it’s free on a streaming platform.

  6/10

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  Review by King #adoptdontshop ★★★ 2

  It is allegorical how in Elysium, director Neil Blomkamp designed an outer space habitat that people from earth can't reach, just as he created an ambitious, sci-fi that he wasn't able to fine-tune.

  Elysium had the goods - the dependable acting strengths of Jodie Foster and Matt Damon, impressive set designs, supple fight scenes and non-grainy special effects - but the storytelling didn't hold itself correctly like a set of metals haphazardly hammered together to form an ugly ass robot. Both the dystopian Earth and the luxurious Elysium wasn't probed further too. Elysium is quite a waste especially since the plot offers strong political commentary on societal class, immigration, overpopulation, and healthcare system.

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  Review by Peaceful Stoner ★★½ 50

  Predictability rules the roost in Elysium as it dissolves any trace of originality and delivers a tasteless, mundane affair that succeeds only as an exposition of the big budget production.

  Five minutes into the film I knew how it was going to end or had a good idea of it. Seeing my predictions come true one after another was sorely disappointing, as I had huge hopes pinned on Blomkamp and his sophomore, heavily anticipated project ever since it was announced, especially, after being floored by the trailer. I was betting heavily on this to become the next big thing in the sci-fi genre because unlike District 9 Blomkamp had big studio backing, all the resources and a world class cast.…

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  Review by Matt Singer ★½ 6

  Well that was all kinds of not good, huh?

  I wasn't a huge fan of DISTRICT 9, but at least that film found a central sci-fi metaphor that worked. ELYSIUM starts from a promising idea -- this future of haves and have nots, with the wealthy above on this satellite of love and magical healing machines, and the poor left to rot below -- but Blomkamp clearly put the cart before the metaphorse. The whole plot is jury-rigged with deus ex machinas and enormous holes and one-dimensional characters just to keep things moving and to give him the pieces he needs to make his points.

  I have no idea, but if I had to guess, I suspect there's a smarter…