Elysium (movie)

Synopsis

At the xxii ^th century, the rich human population now lives in a space station called Elysium .

A worker who has been seriously irradiated learns that he has only a few days left to live. He takes advantage of this short time to try to visit Elysium , because medical cabins have been installed, allowing the cure of all existing diseases.

Detailed Summary

xxii ^th century. The Earth is plagued by disease, pollution and overpopulation; violence is omnipresent. The richest part of the population has taken refuge in an orbital station, Elysium , where there are medboxes, medical booths allowing instant regeneration of the cells of the body. Max, an orphan, meets in an institution the young Frey, and promises him that one day both will settle on the station. To raise the money, Max starts a career as a delinquent.

2154. Living in Los Angeles transformed into a gigantic favela, Max, grown up, did not forget his dream and tries to save enough money to buy a ticket on a shuttle to the station. One day, three unlisted shuttles carrying sick Terres take off from Earth and approach Elysium . Leaving the law, Secretary of Defense Delacourt contacted one of his land-based executives, Kruger, and ordered him to destroy the shuttles. The latter went to his “hideout”, armed with a missile launcher and fired, destroying two of the three shuttles in space, the third escapes from the missile that follows it thanks to the skill of his pilot.medbox , but all end up being captured. They are gathered in a large hangar with many others waiting for a shuttle back to Earth.

Working in a factory making droids, Armadyne, Max, going to work, makes a joke to police robots who do not like and break an arm. In the hospital, he is treated by Frey, who has become a nurse. On his way home, Max meets his friend Julio, who boasts of his legendary delinquent past and offers to take part in a car theft, but Max drew a line on that life.

The next day, Delacourt must answer for his actions before a commission led by President Patel. The latter, who does not approve of his methods at all, threatens to remove her from her duties at the next incident. Kruger, meanwhile, is dismissed. Delacourt then speaks secretly to billionaire John Carlyle, the designer of Elysium ‘s operating system (and CEO of Armadyne) to rig his program to be elected president in the next election. Seeing himself promise a 200-year contract without any other conditions, he agrees.

Meanwhile, Max is severely irradiated as a result of an accident at his job. Knowing himself condemned in the short term, he finds Spider (for whom he has already worked), the man who manages the illegal flights to Elysium and offers him his services in exchange for access to the station to heal. Spider entrusts him with the kidnapping of a wealthy Elysian to hack his banking data (Max will choose Carlyle, to avenge himself for having seen him despise him after his accident) and the team of an external neural network connected to an exoskeleton so to overcome his pronounced muscular weakness.

Using a few men provided by Spider, Max shoots Carlyle’s personal shuttle (which was traveling to Elysium with the new program) but the latter is fatally injured in the clash between his safety droids and Max’s team. . The latter still manages to copy his brain data, unknowingly integrating the program to take control of Elysium, Carlyle, cautious, has previously encrypted with a program of lethal protection for the data carrier. On ElysiumDelacourt, who learned that it was a data piracy and fearing that the program will escape him, secretly reactivates Kruger and two of his agents. The latter is quick to go to the scene of the attack and causes the death of Max’s team (including his friend Julio, who participated in the expedition).

Injured by Kruger who pursues him relentlessly, Max finds refuge in the house of Frey who begs him to bring his daughter, dying of leukemia. Max is forced to refuse because he is himself in danger of death and does not want to put him at risk. Max goes to Spider shortly after (which tells him that the sky in Los Angeles is locked since the attack: no shuttle can take off anymore) and gives him the data, but he realizes that the encryption is not innocent: this is an update of Elysium ‘s central computer : Max has the power to make every Terran Elysium resident .

Meanwhile, Kruger, still in search of Max, captures Frey and his daughter, whom he knows to have hosted Max. Wanting to join Elysium at all costs and against the advice of Spider, Max surrenders, promising the data to Kruger provided he takes them to Elysium , Kruger having the only ship that can override the ban on theft. For safety, Max unpacks a grenade before entering the ship and threatens to blow his head, destroying the data.

As Kruger’s crew tries to control him shortly before arriving at the station, Max detonates his grenade, which rips Kruger’s face and causes the shuttle to crash and Max’s capture. Frey flees with her daughter and finds with spite that without code, the medbox refuses to cure it. Frey is taken over by Kruger that his men saved thanks to a medbox and equipped with a more powerful exoskeleton.

Once the flight ban is lifted, Spider goes to Elysium and finds Max, who is preparing to have the data extracted by Elysium technicians , but gets free and KO Delacourt is furious against Kruger who did not respect his contract implying a certain discretion in his actions. Knowing himself to be more powerful and knowing the secret buried in Max’s memory, Kruger kills Delacourt, ambitions to seize Elysium , before pursuing Max; he and his men are wreaking havoc and destruction on their way. While one of them was about to kill Frey, Max kills Kruger’s two henchmen before sending his friend to look for a new medbox, swearing to find her later once he takes control of the station.

Spider and he are intercepted by Kruger who misses Max. The latter manages to kill his opponent after a long duel before closing with Spider in the room where the central computer of Elysium is held . Spider connects Max but realizes that downloading the data will kill his friend because of the protection program; no medbox can cure the damage done to his brain. After one last radio contact with Frey, Max triggers the update.

The security services finally open the door but the entire station is reset: all humans are now considered citizens of Elysium . The security robots refuse to stop Spider because of his new citizenship. Frey is happy to see the medboxagree to take care of her daughter while fleets of medical shuttles fly to take care of the earth’s population.

Technical sheet

• Original title: Elysium
• Director: Neill Blomkamp
• Scenario: Neill Blomkamp
• Artistic direction: Philip Ivey
• Sets: Don Macaulay
• Costumes: April Ferry
• Photography: Trent Opaloch
• Sound: Craig Berkey
• Editing: Julian Clarke and Lee Smith
• Music: Ryan Amon
• Production: Neill Blomkamp, Bill Block and Simon Kinberg
• Production Companies: Alphacore , Media Rights Capital and QED International
• Distribution Company: Columbia Pictures
• Budget: 100 million to USD ¹
• Country of origin: United States
• Original languages: English , with some dialogues in Spanish , French , Afrikaans , Ukrainian ²
• Format: color
• Genre: science fiction
• Duration: 109 minutes
• Release dates:
  • Canada, United States: August 9 , 2013
  • Belgium, France: August 14 , 2013
  • Swiss : August 22 , 2013

Distribution

• Matt Damon ( VF : Damien Boisseau ) : Max
• Jodie Foster ( VF : Hélène Babu ) : Defense Secretary Jessica Delacourt
• Sharlto Copley ( VF : Dominique Collignon-Maurin ) : Kruger
• William Fichtner ( VF : Dominique Guillo ) : John Carlyle, President of Armadyne
• Alice Braga ( VF : Daniela Labbé Cabrera) : Frey
• Diego Luna ( VF : Benjamin Penamaria ) : Julio
• Brandon Auret ( VF : Loïc Houdré ) : Drake
• Carly Pope : CWB Agent ³
• Michael Shanks : CWB Agent
• Christina Cox : CWB Agent
• Faran Tahir : President Patel
• Johnny Cicco : Vincente
• Adrian Holmes  (in) ( VF : Asto Montcho) : Manual
• Ona Grauer : CWB Agent
• Wagner Moura ( VF : Boris Rehlinger ) : Spider
• Terry Chen : technician
• Jose Pablo Cantillo ( VF : Dioucounda Koma ) Sandro
• Valentina Giros: Frey Young
• Maxwell Perry Cotton : Max young

Source and caption : French version (VF) on AlloDoublage ⁴

Production

Development

In January 2011Media Rights Capital, an independent production company, meets with major studios to present the film’s storyboards , made by Neill Blomkamp . Sony Pictures immediately acquires project ⁵ .

Neill Blomkamp says in an interview at Comic-Con that the film’s budget would be 90 million to US $ ⁶ . A considerable sum compared to his first successful movie District 9 (2009) worth $ 35,000,000 to cash in about $ 211,000,000 worldwide.

Shooting

The filming begins in Vancouver in Canada , inJuly 2011, before the production team flies to Mexico ⁷ .

Output

Promotion

The first trailer comes inJuly 2011representing a false advertisement and the second, in November of the same year, shows a video using the technique of the “camera with the shoulder” (the Shaky camera ) revealing a singular beast abandoned on the road ⁸ .

Critic

According to Cinema Teaser , “it is above all a dense film, confident in the intelligence of its audience.” Indeed, “Blomkamp has the mischief to make his third act an example of ambiguity, pushing the viewer to reflect on what he has just seen. Without revealing too much: do the events concluding Elysium prove to be fleeting hope or mischief worthy of a certain colonialist paternalism? Blomkamp leaves the answer to everyone ” ⁹ .

Laurent Dandrieu finds the film “disappointing” and resting “on the insane idea that it would be enough to press a button so that everyone is rich and happy, which only the malignity of the wicked prevents” ¹⁰ .

In Le Figaro Magazine , Valérie Lejeune notes: “Aesthetic devil, stuffed with special effects and good intentions, but also violence, Elysium can be seen without displeasure” ¹¹ .

In Kritikat , Matthieu Santelli laments ¹² “it was a long time since we had not seen a blockbuster so catastrophically missed”.

Box office

Elysium is released on August 14 , 2013and reported 29,807,393 dollars in its first weekend of operation in the United States ¹³ .

Country or region	Box Office	Box office shutdown date	Number of weeks
United States and Canada	$ 92,370,045 13	October 18 , 2013	9
la France	1,501,035 entries 14	October 18 , 2013	7
World	$ 276,970,045 13	1 st December 2013	–

The film collects $ 11,088,228 on the day of its release in the United States , ranking number ¹⁵ . The August 18 , 2013He won 55.914 million dollars at the box office nationally and 37.7 million dollars internationally for a worldwide total of 93.614 million dollars ¹⁶ .

In France , he immediately won the first place with 608,085 entries ¹⁴ in one week, which makes Louis Leterrier’s Insaisissables ( Now you see me ) in third place with more than 2,000,000 admissions for three weeks; behind him is Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters ( Percy Jackson and the Olympians : The Sea Monsters ) Thor Freudenthal which has attracted 549,325 spectators ¹⁷ .

Distinction

Appointments

• Satellite Awards 2013 : best sound

Anecdote

Sharlto Copley is a South African, so his country’s flag is clearly visible on the side of Kruger’s shuttle.

Notes and references