Showing posts with label sci fi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sci fi. Show all posts

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Review: Elysium (2013)

Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writer: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley

The Plot:
In the late 21st century, Earth was overpopulated, and became overly polluted. The rich and wealthy now live on Elysium, a high-tech space station free of disease, violence, war etc. while the underprivileged remain on Earth. Fast forward to 2152, and Max de Costa (Damon), a factory worker on Earth with a criminal record, gets into an accident at work and gets exposed to a fatal amount of radiation. He's given only 5 days to live, and enlists the help of an old friend to try and get to Elysium to cure the radiation poisoning. Max gets a robotic exo-skeleton attached to him which makes him stronger, and holds information vital to breaking into Elysium.

The problem here lies in Elysium's military, led by Defense Secretary Delacourt (Foster), who will stop at nothing to keep Elysium free of illegal immigrants from Earth. Delacourt plans on overriding Elysium's systems so she can become President. With the help of an agent by the name of Kruger (Copley), who has a similar exo-skeleton to Max, Delacourt intends to steal the information held by Max to override Elysium's systems. Max also tries to help the daughter of an old friend who has been diagnosed with leukemia, by taking her to Elysium to cure her.

Comments:
Amazing. Elysium was an absolutely fantastic film. Blomkamp did a wonderful job in creating both the ravaged, polluted Earth and the pristine, corrupted-government run Elysium. Each character was perfectly cast. Damon and Foster delivered stand-out performances as Max and Delacourt. Everything about the film was done excellently. The writing, the story, the direction from Blomkamp, all amazing, very reminiscent of Blomkamp's previous film District 9.

Rating:
9.5/10

Ryan Meyers

Monday, 5 August 2013

Introducing The 12th Doctor: Peter Capaldi

Maybe this isn't the most flattering photo...
The world went crazy today when BBC announced who would be replacing Matt Smith on the widely popular sci-fi series Doctor Who, and that man is Scottish actor Peter Capaldi. Capaldi, perhaps best known by his role in another BBC series The Thick Of It, as well as guest appearances on other shows like Torchwood, was announced to play the 12th incarnation of The Doctor, starting after Matt Smith leaves the show at the end of the year.

Capaldi is an amazing actor, and Whovians (that's what Doctor Who fans call themselves) went wild when it was revealed today that he would take on the role. I think Capaldi would do a terrific job as The Doctor, and it's nice to see a more mature face playing the role again. Capaldi will take over the role from Smith after the Christmas special, just after the 50th anniversary special in November. I can't wait.

Ryan Meyers