Elysium
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: August 9, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
17
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 8, 2013
Damon’s everyman workhorse is tragically sympathetic, plodding ahead against all odds. Copley is brilliant as the sadistic villain. Foster is … well, you gotta see it to believe it. In the meantime, you’ll be treated to one of the most entertaining action films of the year. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanAug 7, 2013
I wish that the film had more of the tasty futuristic detail promised by that dummy parole officer. I also wish that Blomkamp took us deeper into the world of Elysium. Read full review
83
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthAug 1, 2013
With Elysium, Blomkamp has made good on the promise of "District 9" and proven that working on a bigger canvas doesn't mean compromising on smarts or aspirations to deliver tentpole sized stories with a thoughtful backbone. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinAug 22, 2013
In lesser hands, Elysium might have played like a Lib Dem manifesto with extra spaceships, but the South African filmmaker wants to explore ideas, not wave placards, and whether or not you agree with the film’s politics, the fire in its belly is catching. Read full review
80
EmpireKim NewmanAug 6, 2013
Not perfect, but a much more satisfying Earth-in-ruins film than Oblivion or After Earth. It is a little more conventional than District 9 (what isn’t?), but confirms Blomkamp as one of the potential science-fiction greats of this decade. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneAug 5, 2013
At last, a good big film. The legacy of the summer, thus far, has been jetsam: moribund movies that lie there, bloated and beached, gasping to break even. But here is something angry and alive: Elysium. Read full review
80
VarietyScott FoundasAug 1, 2013
Even working within a more conventional framework, Blomkamp again proves to be a superb storyteller. He has a master’s sense of pacing, slowly immersing us into his future world rather than assailing us with nonstop action, and envisioning that world with an architect’s eye for the smallest details. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBen KenigsbergAug 9, 2013
In a summer of antiseptic effects spectacles, Elysium stands out for its grime and intensity, as well as the bluntness of its class allegory. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 8, 2013
Among the slew of recent futuristic hell-in-a-handbasket spectacles, Elysium takes the cake. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 8, 2013
Elysium proves better at social polemics than escapism, a balancing act Blomkamp managed well in District 9, with its allegory of South Africa's apartheid era. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigAug 8, 2013
Decidedly more thought-provoking than most big-studio summer fare. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsAug 8, 2013
This vision of a violent future makes Elysium well worth seeing, even as the conventional violence of the thriller finale makes it a missed opportunity. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 8, 2013
The film provides an intelligently imagined future world.
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 8, 2013
Blomkamp's universe is a fascinating place to visit and the movie is stuffed with ideas - there's far too much here to satisfactorily explore in 109 minutes, especially when one considers that room must be made for action scenes. I departed the theater satisfied with what I'd seen but wanting more. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 8, 2013
With most films, that'd be enough to cut out half the potential American audience. But effective, evocative science fiction, which Elysium is, has a way of getting by with an ILA (Insidious Liberal Agenda) in the guise of worst-case dystopia. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 8, 2013
Like District 9, an allegory of apartheid that took four Oscar nods and put Blomkamp on the map, Elysium delivers sci-fi without dumbing it down. It's a hell-raiser with a social conscience. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezAug 7, 2013
Elysium, the second movie from writer-director Neill Blomkamp, isn’t quite as inventive or fresh as his knockout debut, 2009’s "District 9." But the new picture is cut from the same cloth — furiously exciting sci-fi, carefully considered and loaded with allegories and social commentary. Read full review
75
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreAug 6, 2013
Appreciate Elysium for what it is, sci-fi that’s smarter, more topical and more invigorating than most of what passes through that genre these days, and another sign that its director is the most promising chap to enter the field since the inception of Christopher Nolan. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnAug 5, 2013
If Elysium is the brainiest Hollywood movie of the summer, it's also the most conflicted one. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirAug 9, 2013
If Elysium isn’t the post-millennial sci-fi masterpiece I was hoping for, it has tremendous resonance and is pretty doggone good for its category. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonAug 8, 2013
Mr. Damon brings both a weary optimism and convincing physicality to Max, who is no revolutionary. He just wants to live, and is willing to don an exoskeletal combat suit and fight robots to do it. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 8, 2013
Mr. Damon’s performance helps keep the movie from sinking under the weight of its artfully constructed horrors. Read full review
67
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanAug 8, 2013
What made “District 9” special was attention to details: You believed in the characters, their society and their surroundings. The big effects in Elysium work fine. But the people never become individuals, and the vagueness and coincidental nature of the storytelling undermine its structure. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 8, 2013
A high-low tension runs through Elysium, not only in the narrative itself, but in Blomkamp’s own cinematic language, which can be lofty one moment and gleefully pulpy the next. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 8, 2013
It’s a letdown, but this director’s still a talent to be reckoned with. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChris CabinAug 2, 2013
A cheekily gruesome and genuinely urgent entertainment, Blomkamp's latest nevertheless can't help but beg the question: Where's Snake Plissken when you need him? Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 22, 2013
Nothing in the movie matches the fascination of its premise and its opening 10 minutes: the undisturbed status quo is mesmeric. Once the narrative grinds into gear, however, the film's distinctive quality is lost. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranAug 8, 2013
Although the pulp energy that Blomkamp brings to this material makes it consistently watchable, the film doesn't feel as singular as we would have hoped. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonAug 8, 2013
This is a messy, poorly structured film, riddled with plot holes and lacking any kind of satisfying conclusion. Read full review
60
The DissolveKeith PhippsAug 8, 2013
For all its simple politics, clanging dialogue, and underwritten roles—only Damon’s natural, and deepening, ability to suggest unspoken disappointment gives his character dimension—Elysium works, though never as well as it should. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 7, 2013
Unfortunately, Elysium devolves. It doesn’t address the ramifications of making everyone healthy for eternity, or what it is on Earth they’re making or digging up that fuels whatever economy is left on the space station. For such a well thought-out premise, there’s not a mention of how capitalism works in this futureworld. Read full review
60
Total FilmJane CrowtherAug 6, 2013
This perfectly alright actioner will entertain newcomers, while leaving Blomkamp fans in a holding pattern until his next project. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearAug 6, 2013
Hollywood loves these apocalypse-soon stories, however, because they function as blank canvases for ruin porn, and if nothing else, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium gives us the realistically trashed tomorrow we suspect we deserve. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottAug 6, 2013
Granted, Elysium could be more clever as it goes about its business. This is smart sci-fi, but it's not as smart as it could have been -- or as many "District 9" fans were probably hoping it would be. Read full review
59
Film.comWilliam GossAug 2, 2013
Frankly, Elysium is a bit of a liberal’s wet dream: the good guys want accessible healthcare, while the bad guys want to do away with undocumented immigrants. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 9, 2013
Blomkamp overdoes even his best effects. (I would have welcomed more vistas of Elysium to break up the grungefest.) If Elysium is an example of how recession-era Hollywood intends to dramatize the rift between the haves and the have-nots, let’s hope the studios don’t also bring back Smell-O-Rama. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 6, 2013
With Elysium, the director proves that he still has one hand on the X-Box controller; maybe he should give the allegories a rest already and just get back in the game. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 8, 2013
The action is bludgeoning. When Max gets pummeled by fists and lethal objects, we get pummeled by light and noise and rock-'em-sock-'em editing. No shrimp, though. As a narrative, "District 9" wasn't particularly original, either — in the end it was a standard conversion melodrama. But everything is better with shrimp. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 8, 2013
Kudos to Blomkamp for not shying away from social issues in his films, but here the execution doesn’t live to the intentions. Read full review
50
ObserverMatthew KasselAug 6, 2013
While the movie may not, in the end, be so effective in tapping into our current class anxieties, that hardly seems to matter. Like a trip to Elysium, it’s a wild ride. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovAug 7, 2013
Ultimately, Elysium ends up with explosions, running gun battles, and summer non-blockbuster tedium. The outcome is never in question, and while Blomkamp has proven himself to be a master of sci-fi social commentary in the past, this dull wheel in the sky just lands with a resounding thud. Read full review
40
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekAug 5, 2013
Damon is as buff as ever, maybe even more so... But watching him lumber through Elysium's bramble of lofty ideals is no damn fun. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyAug 1, 2013
All the interest and good will built up by the sharply conceived preliminaries is washed away in a succession of scenes that feel crushingly routine and generic, not to mentioned guided by ideological urges. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Adam NaymanAug 8, 2013
One of Blomkamp’s most unlikely conceits is a machine – apparently standard-issue in all of Elysium’s made-to-order McMansions – that can heal all injuries and infections at the flick of a switch. He could have used one to fix Elysium’s battered and broken screenplay. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle SmithAug 6, 2013
For a 99 percenter movie, then, Elysium is kind of a head-scratcher. It throws away its best opportunity for drama. It’s as if Han and Leia parked on the Death Star and started asking, “How much is a two-bedroom around here?” Read full review
30
SlateDana StevensAug 8, 2013
Blomkamp proceeds to spend the last two-thirds of his film crashing spaceships into lawns, or staging high-tech fistfights between Elysium’s stolid hero and his even duller arch-nemesis. It’s a waste of a perfectly good dystopia. Read full review
30
TimeRichard CorlissAug 8, 2013
The result is a grim and predictable adventure saga that is not nimble but leaden. Dystopia has rarely been so dysto-pointing. Read full review
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