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| For plot reasons too convoluted to explain here, Elysium found it necessary to surgically implant a really old Garmin into the back of Matt Damon's head. |
I just watched Elysium. It was vivid, original, and flawed. It made me uncomfortable, but I was riveted. Quite a few reviewers disliked it. I think I know why.
So yes, there were all kinds of things to dislike about how Elysium was put together. The plot was a hot mess, full of holes and missing backstories. The relationships between the characters seemed to take place at a distance. A love story between Matt Damon and Alice Braga is gestured at but never fleshed out. One character is killed and resurrected in a cheap, cheap, cheap plot twist. Many actions are superficially motivated by concern for a sick child, but the movie treats her as nothing more than an adorable human football, to be whisked from one place to another for dramatic purposes. We barely have the opportunity to know her.
Also, Jodie Foster's accent is all over the place, but you know, the movie is set in like 2152 or something. Maybe in the 22nd century there's a whole country full of people whose accents are a shifting, vaguely patrician mashup of British-y, generic European-y, possibly South African-y actor-babble. I mean, it's the future. They have magic beds that cure your diseases and robot servants and a space station that looks like West Egg rolled onto the inside of a bicycle tire. One lady with forced, stilted speech patterns is probably the least odd part of this movie's world.
