The film's opening sequence is a large cityscape wasteland, which was visually fantastic. Earth itself is a hopeless place to live. The rich have escaped to a space colony Metropolis called Elysium orbiting the Earth, the "ultimate gated community". There every home has a state-of-the-art gene therapy machine with near resurrection powers. Meanwhile, Terminator-type robot/drone police force enforce a tight control over the planet's labourers/workforce. The film is visually gritty and packs a lot of game-like action sequences featuring cool rusty and shiny future military hi-tech (that can burst apart humans apart like water balloons and robots disintegrates in perfect slow sync). The production takes precedent over character which were not properly conceived or realised for the audience to connect with them. Their personalities don't make sense. Just like the cat and mouse action sequence during the climax, there is no logic to why it is there. Its highly distracting from the story and characters. There is a loss of focus on its priorities here. There are two villains, one a a classy woman defence minister plotting a coup and her psychotic invincible hired henchman who wields a samurai sword. It was cool but jarring maybe because there was no backup explanation. Why does he carry that thing? What does it add to the story? Which brings me to the protagonist of the film. He is a poor man, a tattooed ex-felon, a blue-collar worker who works in a sweat shop, on the assembly line that builds robots. (The workers there accept that inequality is part of the world and nobody rebels.) He is man who lives for himself and only is trying to get by in this world like most working common man around. But a workplace radiation accident leaves our protagonist with just five days to live. He doesn't want to die and in his desperation, he turns to the local mafia head (and computer hacker) who promises to smuggle him to Elysium. In return he has to kidnap one of the Elysium and retrieve some important codes. So he is crudely hard-wired into a super strength giving naked bionic suits (minus the electromagnetic bulletproof shield that the villain has). However, the story which should have been an easy connect, begins to fail. Firstly the film itself comes off very preachy. Part of the problem is that you have a film plot which is not structured properly. The film promised to be about the growing inequality and the fight for equal basic rights like medical care, by the working class living in mega slums. But feels like a superficially sentimental socio-political film with lots of cool action. That even sounds weird. In this film has an cure for everything, except the unsympathetic heart and its bad writing. Loved the gadgets though. What I want to know is now that the rich are going to have to live with the poor, how is it going to be possible when they clearly don't want to give even basic humanitarian help to the poor's kids? And is there going to be an economical collapse as people start to live much longer which is why Elysium was built in the first place?
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AuthorI am interested in unfolding scene design, character design and image design; representing contemporary narrative strategy, narrative shot and narrative style. The flowing images, which combine aesthetics and ideology. NoticeThis site contains copyrighted material for purposes that constitutes 'fair use'; and has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. No fee is charged, and no money is made off this site. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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