Huffington Magazine Issue 61 | Page 106

Exit 19 What is the biggest problem with Elysium? Like most movies this summer, Elysium suffers from an overabundance of dumb and overcomplicated plot points. To be fair, Elysium is the least dumb of the dumb summer movies. But, considering how Blomkamp avoided this in District 9, it’s surprising and disappointing. 20 If you’re going to be blurbed in this weekend’s commercials for Elysium, what do you hope your quote would be? “Elysium is the least dumb of the dumb summer movies!” — Mike Ryan, The Huffington Post What’s an example of an overcomplicated plot point? As we know, Max needs to get to Elysium. Along the way he plans to kidnap the owner of the factory in which he used to work, John Carlyle (played by William Fichtner). It just so happens on this particular day John Carlyle had embedded covert information about Elysium that he plans to bring to the Secretary of Defense (Jodie Foster) — infor mation that Max accidentally steals from John Carlyle. (It gets even more complicated because there’s 21 25 QUESTIONS a strange fail-safe installed with this information that I honestly can’t figure out, and if I tried to explain it would spoil important parts of the movie.) 22 Please tell me there’s not a brave little boy traveling along with Max in Elysium? Well, there is a brave little girl, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. 23 What’s the best part about Elysium? Matt Damon is solid as Max. Above all, it’s one of the first movies of the CGI era in which I didn’t feel like I was watching CGI. There are robots in this movie that look like real robots. Actually, I have no reason to believe that they are not real robots. Elysium is worth seeing for the effects alone. 24 Who is the most disappointing character in Elysium? Jodie Foster’s Secretary of Defense Delacourt, for at least 50 reasons. Who is the oddest character in Elysium? Sharlto Copley’s Agent Kruger, who seems like he’s in a completely different movie than Elysium. Now, I should add, the other movie that Kruger is in looks terrific, but he’s definitely not in the same Elysium movie that everyone else is in. HUFFINGTON 08.11.13