Elysium - Movie Review

Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna and William Fichtner.
Directed by Neill Blomkamp.

★★

I was hyped for Blomkamp's follow-up to District 9, but I found this to be one of the more disappointing films of the summer, if you factor in my anticipation versus what it actually wound up being.

In the near future, the 1% have moved to a space-station called Elysium. Elysium is considered its own independent country, and everyone there lives in a mansion, has robot servants, and has their own medical machines that cure any disease or injury.  Somehow the citizens of Earth do not have this technology, and apparently Elysium won't share or even sell it to them.

Also, all of Earth starts to look like the slums of South Africa.

Max (Matt Damon) is a ex-con now factory worker who gets exposed to deadly radiation, so he has days to live unless he can get to Elysium. Max goes to an old contact of his to find out what he has to do to be illegally sneaked "across the border" into Elysium and get into one of those life-saving med-bays.

Now the head of Elysium's Homeland Security is a Disney villain played by Jodie Foster.  It's one of her hammiest performances to date, and I really don't know what she was thinking. It's dinner theater. It's 3rd Rock from the Sun.  Marginally more subtle is her henchman Kruger, a sadistic mercenary played by District 9's Sharlto Copley, with a South African accent so thick it's hard to understand sometimes. But he can fight.

The heartlessness of the rich and powerful has a Verhoevenian flair to it, but it never builds beyond its initial blueprint of ideas. Once the plot's been put into place, it's all chasing, gunfights, and explosions.  It's better than the Total Recall remake, but that's not saying much.

Carnage - DVD Review

Starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz and John C. Reilly.
Directed by Roman Polanski.

★★★

I imagine this is a very entertaining play to watch.  It's a variant of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, except both couples have their problems bubbling under the surface that may explode out once the alcohol gets pouring.

Foster and Reilly play one couple, she a liberal-cause writer and he a hardware store owner.  They've invited over another couple, Winslet and Waltz, she an investment broker and he a lawyer, because their boys got in a fight that resulted in one hitting the other in the face with a stick.  At first, the couples engage in the polite niceties of four adults trying to work out a problem, but Foster is the victim's mother and she keeps reaching for an apology that never quite comes.  As the day wears on, the politeness takes an edge, and eventually the happy public faces are stripped away.

It's a dark comedy about eroding manners, and while I liked it, I never forget it was based on a play.  The whole thing takes place in a claustrophobic apartment.  The four actors have a blast in their roles, and while the women having showier scenes, I thought Waltz stole the movie.  His shark-like smile and dark eyes make him predatory.  He'll be nice if he has to, but don't push his buttons.

It has a quick running time, which makes its lack of an ending more jolting.  I enjoyed it, but the studio made a mistake positioning this as a limited-release late-December Oscar-bait movie.  I would have made it a spring or fall release on at least 1000 screens.  As is, when the Oscar nominations didn't materialize, it fizzled out at $2.5 million.

The Beaver - DVD Review

ll 1/2

Starring Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence and Cherry Jones. Directed by Jodie Foster.

This film looks at the effects of deep depression, and it does so in a way that you'd think it would be a comedy. It takes its subject matter more seriously than that.

Mel Gibson is Walter Black, the CEO of a toy company. (Oh, great. Another rich-people-with-problems movie.) But Walter is suicidal. One day he sees a discarded beaver puppet in the trash, and he picks it up and puts it on his hand. He starts talking to himself through it.

His estranged wife (Jodie Foster) and angry son (Anton Yelchin) don't know what to make of it. I really liked the family dynamic and the tension. I also liked the subplot where the son develops a relationship with the popular girl who's secretly hurting. She's played by Jennifer Lawrence, pre Winter's Bone/X-Men: First Class/Hunger Games fame.

What made my thumb go from up to sidways was the third act where Walter becomes a national sensation, turning his toy company around and landing on the cover of every magazine in America one week. Really? Really?

The four main performers are good. I just wish it hadn't gone there.