I’ll usually try to keep my expectations at a minimum going into a movie, no matter how excited I really am for it. When my expectations are out of this world, I usually just end up being disappointed. With all that in mind, I was trying to stay hesitant going into Elysium, but I just couldn’t do it. Neill Blomkamp’s debut, District 9, is one of my favorite sci-fi movies ever, and I’m not alone. For Elysium, Blomkamp was working with triple the budget, and one of the premier actors of our time in Matt Damon. All that pushed my expectations as high as a space station in the sky.
But rather than ending up disappointed, something amazing happened: The movie exceeded my expectations in every way. Now, I know the film has gotten mixed reviews, with some critics giving it fairly negative reviews. Well, guess what? Those critics are wrong in almost every way. The film is filled with compelling characters that are impossible not to care about, and those characters are sent on one of the most epic, thrilling journeys imaginable. Furthermore, the visual effects are absolutely stunning. The opening scene alone blew my mind with how well Blomkamp crafted his dystopian world and how perfectly the effects team translated his vision to the screen.
Elysium is the sort of film that you want to think of when you think of sci-fi. It’s the sort of movie that fans of the genre should love, and audience members who usually shy away from the genre should still love. But most of all, it’s the sort of movie you should want to watch again and again.
[h2]Limited: Fruitvale Station[/h2]
In 2009, Oscar Grant was shot and killed by a police officer who was attempting to subdue a group involved in an altercation on a train. When a cell-phone video shot from the train hit the web, protests broke out about the officer’s actions. Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station takes that amateur footage and works backwards, telling a bit about who Oscar is and about the events in his life that led to him being shot on the platform that day.
It’s not the sort of film that’s all that fun to watch, and it certainly isn’t a movie that will brighten your day. But it’s just too good to not watch. Michael B. Jordan turns in the best performance by a guy named Michael Jordan since the 1998 NBA finals. He’s spot-on in every moment of the film. While I can’t say that his portrayal of Grant was accurate because I didn’t know Grant, what I can say is he portrayed a flawed but good character whom the audience couldn’t help but care about, which is exactly what the film needed.
Possibly the best part of the film is it doesn’t take the stance that the police were overtly racist and all white cops hate young black men. Rather, it just tells the story from a relatively objective point of view, not even making it a film about a death as much as it is a film about a day in one very real young man’s life. The result is definitely one of the best limited releases of the year.
— Alexander Lowe