I'm sure that many viewers who have great expectations for this movie, in addition to Damon and Foster's loyal fans, should also have many fans of 'District 9'. After all, under the situation of Hollywood's increasingly depleted creativity, "District 9" has swept the awards and the market as a super dark horse, and has become a milestone work of sci-fi movie in recent years. As soon as the trailer for Elysium came out, director Blomkamp's déjà vu shots and images had many fans eagerly awaiting it, not to mention the fact that the main battlefield this time around has been moved from Earth to outer space, with grandiose scenes and suspenseful plots whetting fans' appetites. Unfortunately, the movie was a big disappointment.
The film's intentions from the start were somewhat creative, and although this is not the first time such a story has been brought to the screen, with Tomasz's "Battlefield Left Behind" earlier this year, it seems to have deliberately drawn a closer relationship between the different classes of people and their relationship with the machines than the other films, and although it lacks depth as a result, it does have a more obvious dramatic conflict. However, the only redeeming feature of the plot is the intention, and the ensuing story can be described as a mess, with all sorts of sudden and bloody plots, with people dying in mysterious ways, and plots jumping around so much that you can't help but want to find the screenwriter and beat him up, not to mention that there is basically no climax to the film, and the whole thing is just a shaky-camera look at the dirty Earth and the beautiful space station. The whole movie is just a shaky-camera exercise in masturbation between the dirty Earth and the beautiful space station, and the director's narcissistic masturbation of his own camera language.
The overload of political metaphors is also one of the factors that makes the movie get out of hand. There's no doubt that immigration is a major theme of the film. 22nd-century Los Angeles has become a Mexican city, and Matt Damon appears as the only white man in the city, as the dirty and chaotic streets of the city seem to imply that the United States will not be able to escape the fate of the Latinization of the United States. On the other hand, the white-dominated, clean and developed society of the space station is a source of great desire, and the Latinos smuggled into the station are a constant stream of people. This kind of blatantly explicit metaphor only makes people of all colors feel less comfortable. On top of that, the screenwriters make no bones about the upcoming election preparations for Hillary, and if Jodie Foster's character isn't alluding to Hillary, it's a coincidence, because the movie also takes a shot at President O'Hare. Since we're hacking Hillary and Obama, naturally we can't leave the Democrats' controversial Medicare alone, and sticking with the movie to the end, I thought I was watching **** and party propaganda.
Even the acting problems that don't normally occur in blockbusters, this movie has people spitting in their faces. First, naturally, there's Sharlto, who starred in "District 9," and not to mention the over-the-top, amateurish approach to acting, but the Eastern European-accented English that's so thick you'd think the smell of garlic was coming off the screen is so noisy you want to plug your ears, and you're on the edge of your seat every time he's in a scene. And then the gangster's Latino actor, after watching I admire Matt Damon in the scene with him is not out of place, I really do not know that actor when he acted in the "Elite Forces" where the aura went, was Damon scared of it, in short, so the two play a serious malfunction of the actors, the movie stirred up a mess. As for Damon and Foster, there's no need to mention them, especially the latter, who gave an Oscar-worthy performance even though the movie sucked.
It's been a long time since I've been able to spit out a movie that was this disappointing. In fact, in terms of quality, the movie doesn't necessarily qualify as bad, but in terms of the level of anticipation and the contrast after viewing the movie, the drop-off is basically as high as an Everest. After making "District 9", the director, who was resting on his laurels, was playing a big game of chess with himself, but it seems that, in the end, he got himself killed.