Elysium (film)

Elysium is a 2013 American dystopian science fiction action thriller film written, directed, and co-produced by Neill Blomkamp, and starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster.[3]  It was released on  August 9, 2013, in both conventional andIMAX Digital theaters. Elysium is a co-production of Media Rights Capital and TriStar Pictures.[4]

The film takes place on both a ravaged Earth, and a luxurious space habitat called Elysium.[5]  It explores political and sociological themes such as immigration, overpopulation, health care, exploitation, the justice system, and class issues.[6]



Contents
[hide]  *1 Plot  ==Plot[ edit] == In 2154, a small number of wealthy people reside on a gigantic, luxurious rotating space habitat called Elysium, and the vast majority of poor people that live on an overpopulated and devastated Earth. While those on Earth are policed by ruthless robots, Elysium's citizens live in absolute comfort and regularly use medical devices called Med-Bays to cure any disease and injury, even reverse the aging process or often give themselves whole new bodies and faces.
 * 2 Cast
 * 3 Production
 * 4 Release
 * 4.1 Box office
 * 4.2 Critical reception
 * 5 See also
 * 6 Notes and references
 * 7 External links

Max Da Costa (Matt Damon), a former car thief, and now a parolee, lives in the ruins of Los Angeles and works at an assembly line for Armadyne Corp, a company which supplies Elysium weaponry as well as the robots which police Earth. After an industrial accident at the factory, Max becomes poisoned by a lethal dose of radiation and is given five days to live. Desperate for a cure, he seeks help from a smuggler named Spider (Wagner Moura) to get him to Elysium, since his only chance for survival is using a Med-Bay. Meanwhile, when a caravan of illegal immigrants from Earth attempts to reach Elysium and its Med-Bays, Elysian Secretary of Defense Delacourt (Jodie Foster) orders a sleeper agent, Kruger (Sharlto Copley), to shoot down the shuttles. Elysian President Patel (Faran Tahir) reprimands her and dismisses Kruger from service. Delacourt, vowing to protect Elysium and her own power, bargains with Armadyne CEO John Carlyle (William Fichtner) to create a program that can override Elysium's computer core to give her the Presidency. Carlyle neurally stores the program for transport to Elysium and encrypts it with a lethal denial system.

Spider agrees to get Max to Elysium if he steals financial information from Carlyle. To assist him, Spider's doctors surgically attach a powered exoskeleton to Max. With his friend Julio (Diego Luna) and a team of Spider's men, Max intercepts Carlyle's ship and downloads the program to his suit's neural implant, but realizes that the encryption makes it unusable. Delacourt secretly deploys Kruger to recover the program. In the ensuing firefight, Carlyle and most of Max's allies are killed, while Max himself is wounded. He heads to the house of his childhood friend Frey (Alice Braga), whose daughter Matilda has leukemia. Frey begs Max to take Matilda to Elysium so that she can be cured, but Max refuses in order to protect them. Kruger takes Frey and Matilda prisoner aboard his ship, while his drones hunt for Max. Delacourt orders an airspace lockdown over Los Angeles to buy enough time to recover Carlyle's program.

Max delivers the program to Spider, who discovers that the program can be used to make all Earth residents Elysian citizens. However, because the lockdown makes it impossible to leave Earth, Max bargains with Kruger to be taken to Elysium, not knowing that Kruger has already found out that Frey assisted Max and is holding her and Matilda hostage on the ship. During the journey, a fight ensues and Kruger is grievously wounded by a grenade blast, which also disables the ship's engines. After Kruger's ship crashes on Elysium, Max, Frey and Matilda are arrested and taken to Delacourt, who orders the download of the program, despite the fact that it will kill Max.

After being revived by a Med-Bay, a deranged Kruger kills Delacourt after she chastises him for his recklessness. On Kruger's orders, his men exterminate the Elysian political officers, in order to seize control for himself. Meanwhile, having escaped his confinement, Max, knowing that Med-Bays only work for Elysian citizens, resolves to use Carlyle's program to give everyone on Earth citizenship. He heads for Elysium's core but is ambushed by Kruger, now equipped with a military-grade exoskeleton far superior to Max's. In the ensuing fight, Max manages to disable Kruger's suit. However, Kruger tethers himself to Max's suit and arms a grenade with the intent of killing them both. Max rips off the tether and hurls Kruger over a ledge to his death.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Spider and Max reach Elysium's computer core, where Spider realizes that the program's activation will kill Max. Max personally activates the program, having spoken a last time with Frey via radio. As Max dies, Elysium's computer core reboots and registers every Earth resident as an Elysian citizen. President Patel arrives with security guards but the robots refuse to arrest Spider, whom they now recognize as a citizen. Matilda is cured by a Med-Bay, and Elysium's computer dispatches a fleet of medical ships to Earth to begin treatment of the new Elysian citizens. ==Cast<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == ==Production<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Elysium was produced by Simon Kinberg, and written and directed by Neill Blomkamp, the director and co-writer of District 9 (2009). It reunites Blomkamp with some of his District 9 crew, such as editor Julian Clarke, production designer Philip Ivey, cinematographer Trent Opaloch, and actor Sharlto Copley, playing one of the film's antagonists.
 * Matt Damon as Max Da Costa
 * Maxwell Perry Cotton as young Max
 * Jodie Foster as Defense Secretary Delacourt
 * Sharlto Copley as Agent C.M. Kruger
 * Alice Braga as Frey Santiago
 * Valentina Giros as young Frey
 * Diego Luna as Julio
 * Wagner Moura as Spider
 * William Fichtner as John Carlyle
 * Brandon Auret as Drake
 * Josh Blacker as Crowe
 * Emma Tremblay as Matilda Santiago
 * Jose Pablo Cantillo as Sandro
 * Faran Tahir as President Patel
 * Adrian Holmes as Manuel
 * Michael Mando as Rico
 * Carly Pope, Ona Grauer and Michael Shanks as CCB agents

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Although the film's story is set in 2154, Blomkamp has stated that it is a comment on the contemporary human condition.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-:0_3-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[3]  "Everybody wants to ask me lately about my predictions for the future," the director has said, "No, no, no. This isn't science fiction. This is today. This is now."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[7]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In January 2011, independent studio Media Rights Capital met with major studios to distribute Elysium, and Blomkamp shared art designs of his proposed science fiction film. The art designs won over the executives at Sony Pictures, who bought the film after making a more attractive offer than the other studios.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Snags_8-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[8]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">With a production budget of  $115 million ,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Budget_9-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[9]  production began in July 2011. The film's Earth-bound scenes were shot in a dump in the poor Iztapalapa district on the outskirts of Mexico City, while the scenes for Elysium were shot in Vancouver and the wealthy Huixquilucan-Interlomas suburbs of Mexico City. Matt Damon shaved his head for the role of Max.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-10" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[10]  The main role was first offered to Watkin Tudor Jones (aka Ninja), a South African rapper, who despite being a fan of District 9 (he has a D9 tattoo on his inner lip) did not take the role.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-11" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[11]  The role was then offered to rapper Eminem, but he wanted the film to be shot in Detroit. That was not an option for the two studios, so Blomkamp moved on to Damon as his next choice.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-12" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[12]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Futuristic designs were executed by Philip Ivey after long periods of researching and studying older science fiction films. Ivey has continuously cited Syd Mead as a substantial influence for the film. Weta Workshop created the exosuits for Damon and Copley's characters, while the complicated visual effects were handled primarily by Image Engine (who also collaborated on District 9) with additional work by Whiskytree, MPC, The Embassy and Industrial Light and Magic. Re-shoots took place through October 2012.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-13" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[13]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The film's music score was composed by newcomer Ryan Amon and recorded at Abbey Road Studios with the Philharmonia Orchestra.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[14]  The soundtrack was released on August 6, 2013. ==Release<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">When the film was first announced, Sony intended to release it in late 2012.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Snags_8-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[8]  It later set an official release date for  March 8, 2013,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Date_15-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[15]  before moving one week earlier to prevent competing against Oz the Great and Powerful.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[16]  In October 2012, Sony then announced they had pushed back the release date to  August 9,  2013.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[17]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In April 2013, Sony also announced that the film would be specifically reformatted for IMAX theaters. By that time, two theatrical trailers and a TV spot had already been showcased.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-18" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[18]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">On December 17, 2013, Elysium was released on DVD and Blu-ray discs in Region 1. ===Box office<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">As of October 20, 2013, Elysium has grossed $93,050,117 in the domestic box office and $192,957,131 internationally for a worldwide total of $286,007,248.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-BoxOfficeMojo_2-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[2]  Elysiumopened on August 9, 2013 and grossed $11,088,228 on its opening day, ranking #1. The film proceeded to rank #1 for the weekend, grossing $29,807,393.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-19" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[19] ===Critical reception<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 68% approval rating with an average rating of 6.5/10 based on 229 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "After the heady sci-fi thrills of District 9, Elysium is a bit of a comedown for director Neill Blomkamp, but on its own terms, it delivers just often enough to satisfy."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-20" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[20]