The Family Review

Coming after the big blockbuster summer season, the month of September always has a couple of odd releases that the movie studios weren't sure what to do with for a number of reasons. In the case of “The Family”, the main reason is that an action-packed mafia dark comedy would have been popular around 15 years ago but not so much anymore.  The prospect of a film starring a still relevant Robert De Niro and directed by Luc Besson, he of “Leon: The Professional” fame, would have garnered lots of interest back in the day. Jump ahead to 2013 and the prospect is much less exciting. With “The Family”, De Niro continues his trend of uninspired movie choices of late, and aside from his Oscar-nominated role in “Silver Linings Playbook” last year, he has mainly stuck to romantic ensemble comedies or shockingly inept action movies that nobody sees. And while Besson is still busy producing and directing films, he hasn’t had a bonafide success as a director since “The Fifth Element” and now sticks to producing B movie action-oriented fare such as surprise success “Taken”.

In “The Family”, De Niro stars as a former mafia boss who turns snitch and with a big contract out on his head, he finds himself on the run in a small town in rural France with his wife and two teenaged children in tow. While all this sounds very riveting so far, “The Family” doesn’t even bother trying doing a fresh take on such unoriginal material and everything becomes fairly predictable and obvious within the first 15 minutes.  Posing as the “Blake” family and with the assistance of an FBI agent played by Tommy Lee Jones (whose small role is one of the few enjoyable aspects of this movie), Giovanni (De Niro) begins writing his memoirs to keep himself busy while the rest of his family tries to blend in. The kids go to school and the wife (Pfeiffer) tries to find a place for herself at a local church.  And as is always the case with movies that star characters on the run on the witness protection program, their cover is eventually blown and the bad guys show up with guns and murderous intent for the final act. “The Family” follows a similar trajectory.

Something worth noting at this point is that this movie constantly finds itself toeing an awkward and unpleasant line throughout most of the proceedings between its comedic and action elements.  “The Family” shares many similar elements with “In Bruges”, a superior movie that also features characters on the run hiding in some exotic locale in Europe and a lot of the humor is of the similar fish out of water variety. But in all the places where In Bruges’ blend of dark comedy and extreme violence worked quite well, “The Family” crashes and burns miserably. One could easily make the argument that every single member of the Blake family might be construed to be a violent and unstable psychopath but their brutal and at times shocking resort to violence at a moment’s notice are displayed as moments of laughter and comedy. The French locals aren’t very enamored with their new American residents and all of the Blakes quickly and “hilariously” assault, maim, bomb, and destroy anything and anybody that rubs them the wrong way and somehow get away with it. The usage of the word “fuck” by the characters at certain times becomes a running gag of sorts and that gives you a very good indication of the kind of humor that can be found here.

A review of “The Family” would not be complete however without mentioning the awful child actors and their bizarre storylines that just don’t belong in this movie. Belle (Agron) is a pretty and psychotic girl obsessed with finding true love and Warren (D’Leo) soon becomes a mafia boss of sorts in the local high school they both attend. Where this leads them is neither interesting nor that relevant to the main storyline and features some really bad acting and some really generic stereotypes. And with a title like “The Family”, there is a surprising lack of development of the relationships between the family members, especially between Giovanni and his two kids. Instead, Giovanni finds himself preoccupied with brutalizing plumbers and chemical plant managers in increasingly horrific ways to solve a water problem in his house.  In the end, the muddled execution is obviously the problem that prevents “The Family” from being a fun and entertaining flick it had the potential to be and we rarely see glimpses of Luc Besson’s unique style that would have elevated the bland subject matter.

SPOILER: While not a real spoiler, it should be mentioned the way that the mafia bosses discover the location of the Blakes comes off as equal parts obscurely bizarre and moronically stupid. However, the joy of discovering the exact way this happens should be left for those willing to devote their time to watch this, a choice that this reviewer would not personally recommend.

C

Movie info:

Runtime: 111 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Dianna Agron

Director: Luc Besson

Screenplay: Luc Besson, Michael Caleo

Cinematography: Thierry Arbogast

Insidious: Chapter 2 Review

Friday the 13th has always been a traditionally strong opening weekend for horror films, and just a few months after the surprising success of “The Conjuring”, James Wan has struck once again with yet another horror flick in Insidious: Chapter 2, an unnecessary sequel that arrives with a noticeable dip in quality and a frustrating lack of genuine scares.

One of the more hard-working horror directors of the last decade, Wan first landed a major hit with “Saw”, launching a franchise that dragged interminably on for a total of six subsequent sequels that ranged from the mediocre to the abysmal. And now it appears that Wan has found the beginnings of a new franchise that can be made on the cheap and consistently turns a profit in an industry fraught with financial risk. Regrettably, while Wan’s films do achieve a modicum of box office success at each go around, he has yet to make a genuinely effective and scary horror film to rival the classics of the past. Aside from the decent “The Conjuring” and the simplistic yet effective “Saw”, Wan’s efforts have always been a mixed bag and he has definitely gone in the wrong direction with Insidious: Chapter 2. 

In the second chapter, the story begins almost directly from where the first film ended, as the Lambert family continues to be tormented by a malignant evil entity that has followed them from the other side.  With son Dalton rescued from “The Further” but father Josh (Wilson) now possessed by the evil entity, the entire cast is back for the sequel; even the zany paranormal activity assistants and their bizarrely misplaced and unwelcome attempts at comic relief are back again. And with chief paranormal activist Elise now dead, the search continues on with the survivors to figure out the mystery behind Josh’s possession. 

Disappointingly, the film fails to be unsettling or scary in general for the most part. While they are not as monotonous or as non-existent storywise as the awful Paranormal Activity series, the Insidious movies are far from effective horror and share many of the same flaws. To the film’s detriment, Wan really ramps up the generic scare factor. Generic scares are cheaply won, rarely built up or earned and fail to be set up or established earlier on for the most part. They are simply designed to make you jump out of your seat with the sudden appearance of something unexpected or by following a period of quiet silence with a sudden incredibly loud noise. While they do jolt or startle you, they do not scare you when there’s nothing else beyond that one brief jolting moment. And Insidious 2 is just chock full of such generic scares. The viewer has to slog through the interminable opening 40 minutes of this film as we go through a repetitive cycle of brief exposition, an encounter with a spirit, and a “scary” jolting moment over and over and over again until things finally get going at the very end. 

The main problem Insidious: Chapter 2 suffers from is that the peril and tension in this film is entirely lacking. We wait impatiently as the spirits go through what has become at this point the customary routine of sporadically haunting people with no real aim or purpose, and the fact that those who have already watched the first film know that Josh is possessed takes away a lot of the mystery early on. This second chapter lacks a clear and effective driving narrative force to move things along and the main driver of events in the first film, Dalton, plays no significant part in the proceedings until the very end. The film also lacks a clear main protagonist; Patrick Wilson filled that spot the last time but he is more or less uninvolved for a large portion of this story. Wilson, in his third Wan horror movie in the last two years, does have an ever so slightly edgier role this time but is still at risk of becoming typecast in playing such bland characters so frequently. 

Truth be told, Wan appears to be successful in appealing to the masses with his specific style and presentation but that safe and generic style prevents him from making a genuinely scary and unsettling horror film. Wan goes through all the stops here and every trick of the book is utilized with minimal results. When the ending finally mercifully arrives, you can’t help but feel that this second chapter adds nothing new or different and what you soon realize is that you just witnessed a movie that has ”money grab” written in great big letters  all over it. Bottom line: avoid a potential third Insidious at all costs.

C-

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 106 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey, Lin Shaye

Director: James Wan

Screenplay: Leigh Whannell

Cinematography: John R. Leonetti

Bastardo Review

The Toronto International Film Festival, long considered the unofficial start of the annual film awards season, contains plenty of high profile Oscar bait films with star-studded casts  but it’s also a great place to catch hidden gems that arrive with much less fanfare. Many interesting little films from countries that don’t normally get much publicity can be found for those willing to invest their time to look and Bastardo is a great example of that.  Bastardo, a Tunisian film by director Nejib Belkadhi, is perhaps a slightly familiar story, but it comes packaged in a very unfamiliar setting with a refreshingly different cast of eclectic characters.

Bastardo is the story of Mohsen, a down on his luck underdog who lives in a district in the rural area of Tunisia that time and the 21st century has clearly forgotten. Apparently the police and law has no sway in this district and everything is in the control of a local thug named Larnouba, or to be more specific, in the control of Khadhra, his domineering and physically imposing mother who possesses a booming voice that would put most men to shame (her role is actually played by a male actor).  The film takes its time introducing all the characters and their various relationships with each other as we get thrown headfirst into this bizarre and unconventional world but everything soon becomes crystal clear.  

A simple story about three childhood friends who all stray away from each other as they grow older lies at the centre of this film. Larnouba (a name that basically translates to rabbit) is a stuttering obese man who was groomed from childhood by his abusive and domineering mother to take the place of his father as district boss and he struggles with his own meek nature to fit that role. Bent Essengra, afflicted by a fantastical malady, is an outcast who still cares deeply for both Mohsen and Larnouba in her own way but has no love in her life of her own.  Abandoned as a baby and discovered in a rubbish bin, Mohsen is taken into the care of a lonely man and put under the protection of Larnouba’s father, the neighborhood boss at the time. We find Mohsen as a grown man unable to escape the stigma of such an unseemly background. As we are introduced to this character and his world, he is given very little respect and because he lacks a last name, he is simply called “Bastardo”. When Mohsen loses his job after becoming implicated in a robbery perpetrated by Morjana, a woman at his work whom he clearly has had a long and unhealthy fixation about, a chain of events that will forever alter his life gets set into motion.

Morjana herself is a completely unattainable illusory spectre and we never get a glimpse of the actual woman as we only ever see her through Mohsen’s point of view. We catch a silhouette here, a blur there, or touched up and photo-shopped billboard posters of her every now and then but she always appears beyond his reach. The character herself is unimportant, but what she represents in this story and what she represents to Mohsen is pivotal to this film. While he starts off as a naturally sympathetic figure, his decisions and choices lead him astray in every way possible. Mohsen is discontented with his lot in life and wants to escape his meagre surroundings, wants to escape his background, and more significantly and devastatingly, he desires with a great passion to escape himself. He spurns the love of those around him and seeks that which he cannot have. He desires power; he desires a chance to fulfill something he feels is lacking inside of him. He desires to be the type of person that someone like Morjana would want to be with and the pursuit of that dark and consuming impulse comes at a very high cost. 

The universe of the film contains a number of unbelievable elements but this isn’t meant to be a realistic world. The ideas and themes it discusses are quite real though.  The movie, at its core, is a commentary on the powerful and potentially negative effects of capitalism and progress on society and the way those effects can pervade and corrupt everything, making people desperate and greedy for things they don’t really need. Mohsen and the entire district eventually fall victim to this overreaching lifestyle and it’s interesting to see the influence that things we take for granted have in this world. We witness how our own violent and antagonistic tendencies tend to parallel behavior found amongst other animals throughout the film, and a number of observations about the ugly side of human nature are made throughout as well. Ultimately, the film attempts to question what is truly important and what truly makes us happy and while there isn’t much optimism or redemption to be found in Bastardo’s world, it still remains a gripping and entertaining tale that deserves an audience to appreciate it.

B+

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 106 minutes

Rating: 14A

Language: Arabic

Cast: Moneem Chouayat, Lobna Noomene, Chedley Arfaoui, Lassaad Ben Abdallah

Director: Nejib Belkadhi

Screenplay: Nejib Belkadhi

Cinematography: Gergely Poharnok

Drug War Review

To change things up once in a while, it’s nice to get a reprieve from Hollywood generic fare and watch a foreign movie with all of its little unique differences and oddities in style. Drug War, however, proves that certain foreign movies aren’t really that much of a departure from Hollywood after all. Drug War, with a title that is as original and as no-nonsense and straight to business as the movie itself, is the latest gritty action flick by Hong Kong director Johnnie To to reach North American theatres. Very well known in Hong Kong but an unfamiliar name internationally, To proves himself to be a very competent director with a good mastery of all the fundamentals needed to make an effective and action-packed thriller but therein lies the failure of this movie. It has all the fundamentals in spades; it has the action scenes, the shootouts, drugs, violence, mafia kingpins and shady warehouses...etc but it literally has nothing else. Perhaps surprisingly for those who haven’t seen many Chinese or Hong Kong action films, there isn’t anything really here that you couldn’t find in a big Hollywood action thriller. 

The movie wastes absolutely no time in throwing us into the convoluted yet paradoxically moronically simple storyline and doesn’t partake in the extravagant luxury of trying to introduce the characters properly. Character development is clearly completely irrelevant for the purposes of this movie. All of the characters can only be summarized using very basic descriptive adjectives and there isn’t much below the surface to scratch at here. We follow the action through the eyes of our two protagonists:  Captain Zhang is an experienced and capable hard as nails cop willing to go to any lengths to catch the perp and Timmy Choi is a career criminal heavily involved in the drug gangs of Hong Kong. All other characters’ names and personalities are irrelevant; they’re all just cannon fodder for the grand finale. All we need to know is who the cops and the bad guys are, but even that eventually gets lost in the mayhem. Captured by Zhang and facing the death penalty, Timmy is forced to turn snitch as the two main leads form an unstable and temporary alliance. The only thing that can really be said about Timmy is that he is a self-serving survivalist; he is willing to do anything and cross anybody to make sure he gets out of whatever jam he happens to be in. And there lies Zhang’s dilemma. Pushed by circumstance and the urgent need for action into a continuous and nonstop pursuit of leads to take down all of Hong Kong’s mob bosses, Zhang is forced to trust the very untrustworthy Timmy and to put himself and his team in numerous compromising situations. 

The film slowly builds and crescendos towards the end until it culminates in one of the most over-the-top, brutal and ridiculous shoot-outs in action movie history. People with multiple conflicting interests and objectives begin dropping left and right in an elaborate and over-stylized orgy of action that is both inventive and creative in its carnage as we truly don’t know who if anyone is going to come out of this thing alive. Characters are killed off and disposed of in a confusing manner that might not be entirely clear on a first viewing but the one thing that stands out the most in this finale is the fact the bullets in this world do not seem to be as effective as they should be. People are shot multiple times but remain standing as if nothing more than a mosquito just bit them. Action movies can be forgiven for certain breaks from realism such as the never-ending availability of ammunition or the lack of a need to reload, but tension and excitement tends to wane when those elements are overdone. 

There are a number of intense and really well done scenes that keep you at the edge of your seat but those are mixed in with a number of scenes that are either redundantly boring or comically stupid and over-the-top. We cringe and begin to question Zhang’s capability as a leader when so many of his officers die and when he is frequently winging it and improvising improbable solutions at a moment’s notice. But in the end I guess, it all makes for good entertainment as stupid as it all really is. People are constantly falling by the wayside but the movie doesn’t choose to comment on that or stay with them to examine the damage and carnage wrought by all these characters. The only thing that matters is the action and whether Zhang is successful or not in his hell-bent pursuit of justice.  Ultimately, we never learn why Zhang does what he does or how Timmy became what he is. Both characters go through the wringer in this movie but this doesn’t really change or affect either of them as we are left so completely in the dark that we really couldn’t care less what fate has in store for anyone when all is said and done.

C+

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 107 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Sun Honglei, Louis Koo, Huang Yi

Director: Johnnie To

Screenplay: Ryker Chan, Ka-Fai Wai, Nai-Hoi Yau, Xi Yu

Cinematography: Siu-Kueng Cheng

Distributed by: Media Asia

You're Next Review

Initially premiering way back in 2011, You’re Next has finally gotten a wide release in North America and is the latest in a long line of small budget slasher flicks to show up and recede quietly from movie theatres. The problem may be that an audience for a movie like You’re Next may simply not really exist. As recent hit “The Conjuring” and the continued success of the Paranormal Activity movies has proven, there’s still a lot of money to be made in horror movies but the slasher film is a small niche whose popularity has definitely waned in recent years. The long-anticipated Scream 4 came out two years ago failing to make much of a wave with horror fans or in the general box office and it has become quite clear that fan tastes have shifted to the more creepily subtle paranormal fare lately.  

As is usually the case with slasher movies, You’re Next’s plot is virtually non-existent but it serves the purposes of the film; no commentary on society or meditative insight on the nature of violence will be found anywhere near here. The Davisons, an upper class family of rich annoying people who we are sure to not really care about are the designated targets this time around. Deciding to retire in their isolated country home in the middle of nowhere, a gathering of the various children and their significant others for their parents’ anniversary sets the stage for the mayhem that will most undoubtedly ensue. All of this has been done to death of course and there’s nothing really new here, especially for those familiar with all the clichéd horror movie tropes, but the film is competently made, expertly crafted, and the cast of unknowns does a serviceable job for the most part. Our heroine is Australian actress Sharni Vinson as Erin, girlfriend of one of the retired couple’s visiting children and definitely the most likable member of the cast. Continually proving to be harder to kill than anyone could have anticipated, she plays the role completely straight for the most part and just goes straight down into business. No funny one-liners or physical comedy a la Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead is to be found here. That being said, Vinson plays the role well as she fights back with a combination of creative little traps and sheer force of resilient brutal will. 

Well-polished and competently made with a number of stand-out scenes and sequences, You’re Next still definitely falls into the category of hit and miss horror. The action is never too outrageous and the characters’ decisions are never too unbelievable or ludicrous which is a welcome change to be sure but the last third changes all that. Cued by a fast paced track that sounds like it belongs in one of the horror classics of the 80s, everything detours into a very different direction in the final act as the number of survivors begins to dwindle and the deaths start to become more creative. You almost wish this was more like those crazy over-the-top gorefests of the 80s but the tonal shift is done half-heartedly and comes out of nowhere. Caught between being a serious type of slasher film and being a self-parody in the style of the Scream series, it all comes off muddled and unsatisfying. Put simply, You’re Next is not entirely sure what kind of horror movie it’s trying to be. No mistake here, it definitely aims to please its audience, and for horror fans there’s much to like about this slasher flick but the shame of the matter is that the movie is just tonally all over the place. Figuring out who the killers could be is part of the silly fun of these movies and while the reveal isn’t particularly interesting here, it works rather well as we watch the characters get picked off one by one for reasons unknown. But You’re Next ultimately takes itself too seriously for its own good and the film’s occasional foray into funny territory comes off odd and jarring; it just doesn’t really belong in a movie that had made no real attempts to establish itself as such a film in the first hour or so. 

Not as fun or entertaining as it wants to be or could have been and not as intense or terrifying as it should be, You’re Next gets the job done for the most part but fails to be memorable or particularly interesting, placing it firmly in the category of a late night horror movie guilty pleasure on Netflix and nothing more.  

C

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 94 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Sharni Vinson, AJ Bowen, Nicholas Tucci

Director: Adam Wingard

Screenplay: Simon Barrett

Cinematography: Andrew D. Palermo

Distributed by: Lionsgate

The World's End Review

The World’s End, the long-awaited and hotly anticipated finale of the so-called “Cornetto Trilogy” has finally arrived to cap off a mind-numbing summer full of big budgets and big explosions and the relatively low key film is a welcome change. Featuring the talents of the British comedic trio of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and borrowing elements from both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, The World’s End sees the them all in fine form once again. While no longer spoofing zombie flicks or over-the-top action movies, The World’s End contains the same subversion and quick and furious pans and edits that Wright utilized extensively in the previous two movies, this time tackling a wholly new genre. 

Gary King (Pegg) is an addict and alcoholic who yearns to go back to those younger days when everything was possible and nothing had to be taken seriously and seeks to gather all his old school chums to recreate an epic pub crawl in his small and quaint hometown of Newton Haven. A very British idea and notion to say the least and the humor is of a very dry British variety as well; it’s the small jokes and gags and nice little touches here and there that are the funniest. There are a number of big scenes of physical comedy and obvious laughs but the real gems here lie in the brilliant interplay and dialogue between the characters, who all fit in their roles superbly well. An element that has always been a strength of this trilogy is the subtle characterization that director Edgar Wright always establishes very cleverly and effortlessly. Within only a few scenes, the main characters all feel like real and fully fleshed out people with all their little quirks and idiosyncrasies (something that recent Hollywood movies have proven is easier said than done). Themes, inner conflicts and tensions are established pretty early on between all of the characters and another rewarding aspect of these films is that all those little set-ups always pay off if you pay close enough attention.

This time around, both Pegg and Frost play roles outside their conventional norm but the grounding foundation of this film once again is their antagonistic relationship and their conflict’s eventual resolution.  While in Shaun of the Dead, Pegg is the sad sap being dragged down by immature and toxic Frost, there’s a completely role reversal here and the results are quite entertaining and oddly touching.  Gary’s bad history with Andy (Frost) is hinted at from the beginning and hangs over the early proceedings to be slowly and steadily revealed. All of his old mates are initially reluctant to revisit the town they all so desperately wanted to escape from but Gary hasn’t moved on like them and with a combination of dishonesty, abrasiveness and inappropriate humor, he convinces them all to join him. But behind all the hijinks and juvenile behavior hides a deeply troubled and tormented individual, a man who feels like he has absolutely nothing to live for who struggles to find a place for himself in the world. Gary’s road to recovery is emotionally charged and the evolution of his character from beginning to end is The World’s End’s best component. 

Although definitely not the strongest of the trilogy (that honor still remains with the more tightly paced and perfectly executed Shaun of the Dead), The World’s End contains a great sense of poignancy and sadness throughout, something wholly unanticipated but thoroughly welcome. The film comments on our flawed nature as human beings and the great freedom to be able to be flawed and make our mistakes that we take for granted, and as in the rest of the trilogy, the film is ultimately about leaving the past behind and finally growing up. In another interesting aspect, the film contains a certain element of the dangers of history repeating itself that we witness in the fates of certain characters and the positions they find themselves in. Our main characters are both tormented individuals and what starts as a journey to get completely pissed (as the British would say) takes them to find what they’re looking for in unexpected yet fitting places and although the finale is somewhat underwhelming, this is yet another staple of these movies: it doesn’t always take you to where you expect it to go. 

B

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 109 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Rosamund Pike

Director: Edgar Wright

Screenplay: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg

Cinematography: Bill Pope

Distributed by: Universal Studios

Elysium Review

Elysium, South African director Neil Blomkamp’s follow-up to surprising box office hit and Oscar-nominated District 9, reached movie theatres in August carrying big expectations. With a big name star in Matt Damon and a budget almost 4 times that of 30 million dollar District 9, Blomkamp’s unique vision and style is given plenty more room to work with but ultimately, the final result is a resounding disappointment. Making a long story short, in a future where the rich have fled an overpopulated crumbling Earth to a beautiful and plush haven in space called Elysium, Max (Matt Damon) is thrust by fate and desperation into a chain of events that will change this world order for good.

I always thought that the problem with Blomkamp was with certain aspects of the storytelling and while we catch glimpses of those flaws in District 9, especially in the action-packed grand finale, they are prevalent throughout Elysium. A ham-fisted and shoddily done opening is surely one of the most unsubtle and silly things I’ve seen all summer. The exposition introducing Max’s character in the beginning is overly simplified, juvenile and rushed. One of the main problems in Elysium, and something that is becoming very common lately in other R-rated action movies, is that it is graphic and bloody while also paradoxically incredibly simple and juvenile at the same time. Keep an eye out for an incredibly stupid and awkward scene involving Damon and a young girl’s story about a hippo for a good example of what I mean. Mix that in with a couple of very graphic deaths and ships filled with crippled refuges being mercilessly blown up and the movie comes off caught between two worlds in terms of what audience it’s really meant for. Blomkamp takes great pains to create this world and while some of the gadgets and technology are cool, it doesn’t really show up on the screen (one exception being an incredible facial reconstruction scene). We catch glimpses of the dystopian Earth and the utopian Elysium of this future but never really get a feel for either or experience them properly. This is especially true for Elysium where we only witness a couple of futuristic looking hallways or control rooms and the odd mansion here and there. 

SPOILERS:

The film has an interesting supporting cast that is unfortunately terribly utilized. Jodie Foster, as the head of security of sorts for Elysium, is one of the villains in an awful performance that isn’t really her fault. Equipped with a bizarre American/English/who knows what else accent and willing to defend Elysium’s independence at any cost, this is one character who is definitely shortchanged and cheaply disposed of in the end. In an interesting choice, District 9’s Sharlto Copley also stars as psychopathic mercenary Kruger, a role that couldn’t be further away from the meek and scrawny Wikus van de Merwe. He looks the part and embraces the brutal physicality of the role but his portrayal is definitely hit and miss, especially in the finale where he becomes increasingly over the top and cartoonish in his delivery. Finally, there isn’t much to say about Damon’s performance. He isn’t really a good fit for the role but there really isn’t much for the character to do. While District 9’s Wikus goes through incredible hardship and undergoes a clear process of change from beginning to end, Max’s story is simply that he has a basic obvious desire to escape his surroundings and go to Elysium ever since he was a child, and as some old nun mentions to him in the aforementioned awful opening, he is destined for great things. There are obvious parallels in this messianic nature of his character, especially in the end, but luckily nothing as blatant as what we witness in Man of Steel (A cringe-worthy church scene with Superman and a random generic priest comes to mind). 

The movie as a whole brings up many interesting themes about concerns of the ever growing and constant divide between the rich and poor. Immoral CEO types, always easy targets as villains in Hollywood films, do crop up here, but Elysium only scratches the surface of the fascinating possibilities and moral dilemmas such a world creates.  Because of the juvenile nature of the film, certain questions arise regarding the technology and the shocking simplicity with which the entire system of Elysium can be taken over and controlled or of how easily three murderous rapist South African mercenaries could have taken over everything, or why Jodie Foster’s ill-fated character would trust Kruger enough to be alone with him and his men. Technology exists that can cure any malady and theoretically make you immortal but who if anyone should have the power to withhold or administer such technology one might ask? The movie bluntly answers that by giving us a childish happy ending where everyone supposedly gets medical aid. Does anything really get solved in the end? Earth seems to be completely controlled by marauding gangsters and I would have loved to see a sequel where people begin to kill each other to control that medical technology or perhaps override the system again.  

C+

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 109 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Wagner Moura

Director: Neil Blomkamp

Screenplay: Neil Blomkamp

Cinematography: Trent Opaloch

Distributed by: Sony Pictures