Tag: Neill Blomkamp

Elysium / The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

120px-Film-stripDate night rolled round and the two films that fitted in back-to-back were both effects-heavy, yet different.

Elysium

“I’d like them dead.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: in a dystopian future, one man needs to get from the poor zone to the rich zone. Violence ensues.

See it if you like: sci-fi with an actual plot and very good effects. And, obviously, District 9.

If you’ve seen the aforementioned (moderately low budget) District 9 then it won’t take more than a few minutes of Elysium starting before the visual similarities make themselves known. Neill Blomkamp does a dystopian wasteland better than most and he’s stuck with the theme for this big-budget outing.

Before I get to the plot and actors, I just have to say that the visuals are superb. They look realistic, the physics in the moving stuff feels just about right, there’s a ton of detail… Basically, they back up and bolster the film making the setting and story that bit more believable. Exactly what effects should be. This is a plot-driven movie with effects to support it, not an effects-driven one with a story tacked on.

Damon is pretty good as the downtrodden ex-con to finds himself in need of medical treatment. The only place to get it is on the orbiting rich-person-only space station Elysium. Their immigration policy is similar to that suggested by certain Australian politicians and begins with “Arm missiles…”.

Leading the posh nobs is President Patel (Faran Tahir), but he’s overshadowed by an as-usual excellent Jodie Foster who’s somewhat more militant in her outlook. In her pay is mercenary Kruger (Sharlto Copley, who played the lead in District 9) who is deliciously nasty.

The story, though, doesn’t flow so much as it staggers. A shame as the various plot strands aren’t bad. For me, they just didn’t move around as well as they could. This only spoiled things a little for me as I was utterly drawn into Blomkamp’s world.

A top notch piece of sci-fi. Nicely silly in places, great to look at and with a very able cast.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

“Everything you’ve heard… about monsters, about nightmares, legends whispered around campfires. All the stories are true.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Young girl starts to find out there’s more to the world – and herself – than she thought

See it if you like: Harry Potter, Twilight… teen vampire/magic/werewolf stuff

From sublime sci-fi to ridiculous teen-angst mush. OK, it wasn’t that bad. To start with. But by the time I’d asked myself “Is this it? Is this the climax? Is it over?” I’d just got fed up with the whole thing and wanted to go home. Often, I’ll pass that off as simply being tired and therefore judging the film unfairly but when the wife – who likes this kind of stuff – says the same thing you know the film’s just gone on too… damn… long.

We have a young girl, Clary (Lilly Collins), who starts drawing mysterious symbols subconsciously. Something inside her is trying to get out and an attack on her family leads her to meet Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower) – a “Shadowhunter” who battles demons.

And thence begins a journey where she discovers what’s truly within her, snogs someone, battles vampires, yada-yada-yada. Sorry, but it just seemed to drag on.

The leads are typical teen fodder – pretty girl, brooding boy, unwelcoming peers, nerdy best friend (Robert Sheehan, who’s been far better in everything else I’ve ever seen him in). The story is very predictable, the effects are OK, and – in case I’ve not made the point already – it’s too bloody long.

Started well, got boring, should have limited itself to ninety minutes. It’s officially 130 minutes, but feels like 180.

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Thursday film round up – from last Thursday

Review: Enter 'The Hurt Locker' And Prepare Fo...
The Hurt Locker

Oops. I never did get round to posting this on time. Right, at present I get Thursdays as a “personal study day”. As I study over the weekend instead, I give myself this as a day off and make full use of my cinema card. Last week I managed to cram three films in around a quick lunch and a leisurely hour in McD’s using the free wifi.

The Hurt Locker

First up is Kathryn Bigelow‘s newest effort. I’m amazed this isn’t on in the “smaller” Cineworld cinemas such as Dundee on the basis that it has a big budget, a name director and a recognised cast. What else do you need to not be classed as a “minority interest” film? What really annoys me is that it’s bloody brilliant and fewer people are getting a chance to see it as a result.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Men in Iraq defuse booby-trap bombs. Usually. Only you don’t know when they’ll fail, regardless of the grade of actor playing them.

Bigelow has managed to shoehorn more tension into this film than in any three modern schlock horror films. There’s enough tension to make a steel cable snap.

Not just the bomb defusing scenes are taught. There’s a superb quarter hour where our main characters (plus a couple of incidentals) are pinned down by sniper fire.

Then there’s the fact that some of the events aren’t preceded by “will-he-won’t-he” moments. They just *BAM* happen.

I can’t point you at them right now, but I read quite a few comments on reviews before I saw this. A handful were from people who’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan and they heaped praise on the realism of the film.

Highly recommended if you have the nerve to sit through it.

District 9

Being “presented by” someone – even Peter Jackson – is often a death knell for a film. Or am I just thinking of how awful the Tarantino-presented Killing Zoe was? Maybe. However, Neill Blomkamp has done a decent job on this sci-fi effort although it’s still not perfect.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Aliens arrive, seemingly by mistake, and hover over Johannesburg. They end up corralled into a slum (the titular District 9) and treated like second-class beings until something goes wrong as they’re being moved away from the city.

The cast is – as far as I can tell – pretty much made up of utter unknowns. There isn’t a bad one in the bunch, though. Obviously, focus is on the central character of Wikus Van Der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), who is very good but did bring back memories of Derek from Bad Taste.

It begins  as some kind of docu-drama but rapidly becomes a mixture of this format and regular filming which does jar somewhat. Either make it all look like it’s from news camera footage or don’t bother. To offset this, the effects are simply superb. There’s a great blending of CGI and traditional “man in a rubber suit” work for the “Prawns” which works very well.

There’s no denying the “wouldn’t be more obvious if it kicked you in the crotch” allegory of people of a different appearance being kept in shanty towns in South Africa. It’s a point that sadly still needs to be made and when you consider that the film was made in that country it’s perhaps a little brave for them to basically be pointing out their own flaws.

This aside, it’s a very entertaining sci-fi flick. It wasn’t as good as I was hoping – the plot gets rather linear after the halfway point – but you do start to care more about the Prawns once this mark is reached and you learn more about them.

Worth a watch, but don’t believe the hype. I only hope they don’t go the obvious path and release District 10 but I fear it’s inevitable.

(500) Days of Summer

Yes, a rom-com. No, I’ve not gone soft. Well. No more than usual. I had a natural aversion to the film as it features Zooey Deschanel. While I’m aware that she is bloody attractive, she was also in the atrocious Hitchiker’s Guide To the Galaxy movie and thus will be tainted evermore.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl. Erm. Sort of. Only it jumps back and forth like a cross between Memento, Pulp Fiction and When Harry Met Sally.

This jumping about could have been such a headache, but it’s handled superbly well with careful use of graphic set pieces and a modicum of narration.

The story itself isn’t a hugely original one. It is, however, told in a novel way and with a great line of humour running through it. I don’t want to give too much away, but the ending isn’t what you’d expect. My only problem with it was that it mirrored a very recent relationship of mine far too closely for my liking. Don’t worry, I’m not going to sue them for ripping off my life. I do believe in coincidence.

Much as I did enjoy this, more because I wasn’t expecting to, I’d still rate Bandslam as a better rom-com. And it has better music. But still – this is very entertaining and a good date movie if your other half has a sense of humour.

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