Hobocop

Do you ever have one of those bruises that hurts to touch and yet you can't help but poke it anyway? Well, because I'm asking, I obviously do however I also kind of extend that destructive mentality into other aspects of my life. For example; I hate Piers Morgan with an absolute passion and yet I follow him on twitter. It's not that I want to contact him but instead, I get a small amount of pleasure from being pissed off with whatever shit the puffy, faced, gooch-wart has just tweeted. It's the same again for this fat cunt I know at my work who thinks he's my boss but really isn't. I won't say his name for fear of him getting me fired again so let’s just say that he's a work-shy hypocrite, with zero people skills and a weird vendetta against me. Oh, and his names Mike. Anyway anytime me and him have gotten into a dispute, the first thing I do afterwards is tell my friends about it when I get home. Whenever I'm reciting the twattish ways in which the thick, man-boobed bastard has spoken to me, I start to get genuinely wound up to the point where I know I'm going to start bleeding from my ears soon. Despite being filled with a seriously murderous rage though I still enjoy telling it. Maybe being able to recite the stories by passionately overusing the word  ‘fucktard’ is therapeutic or maybe I'm just a sucker for psychological self-harm.

Primary Objective: Get 10p for a cup of tea.

Either way, I only mention all of this because Elysium is the cinematic equivalent of the enjoyable bruise-poke. The film is set in the year 2154 when, surprise surprise- we've fucked the planet. Earth has become a shit pot of disease and pollution with the whole world now being almost as ugly and rat infested as the Welsh town of Rhyl. Still, if further proof was needed for the idea that shit floats, the grossly rich people are all fine and dandy having buggered off to a giant silver arse-hole in the sky. Orbiting Earth is a huge sphincter-shaped satellite called Elysium where all of the upper-classes with more money than backbone live luxuriously in a protected paradise. Whereas the working classes exist in squalor and degradation, the wealthy sky twats don't need to worry about a single thing. Matt Damon plays a poor, mistreated man with severe radiation poisoning and a massive bald head. Because he's only got a few days left to live, he decides to try and break into Elysium so that he can use their miracle, medical pods that cure humans of pretty much any illness. To do this he is strapped with a giant robot frame that allows him to punch the shit out of anything in his way and which also kind of makes him look like a tramp’s attempt at remaking Robocop... So I guess we could call him Hobocop? Blog title found! To complicate things even more, Elysium is currently experiencing a coup and because of some spoilerific shiz, Matt Damon is at the centre of it. With Damon battling against shadowy organisations, humans living in space and robots in charge of a fucked up Earth, Elysium is kind of a cross between The Bourne Ultimatum and Wall-E.

The reason I say that the film is like an enjoyable bruise-poke is because it's clearly designed to annoy the viewer. The rich are depicted as being either greedy and sociopathic or simply oblivious and shallow. If you wanted to draw a picture that would best demonstrate the main metaphor of the film then I guess you could draw Donald Trump and Paris Hilton as giants, just shitting all over the public. On Earth, Damon is simply trying to get by and yet anybody with any authority over him treats him like crap for no reason other than that they can. Maybe it was just me but seeing him get so badly mistreated was really about as annoying as getting a spicy thorn jammed into the end of your cock. However, like the arguments with my non-boss, the pleasure of seeing Damon abused is in the knowledge that soon he'll have the release of venting his anger. Whereas all I can do is wish cancer on the hateful fucktard at work, Damon simply goes apeshit, starts ripping off robots heads and exploding people’s faces. There's no denying that after seeing him get his arm broken by the police, watching Damon later going mental with a fuck off laser gun was quite satisfying.

As an action film, this is definitely light years ahead of some of the turgid dross that is shat into cinemas on a regular basis, however as a sci-fi it has one interesting issue. Generally films are criticised because they have very little to say other than, “give us your fucking money”. Despite the backlash, I remain a fan of Star Trek: Into Darkness but I'll still admit that the only original message that it really had was, “aren't Alice Eve's tits nice”. However the problem with Elysium is that perhaps it has too much going on to the point where nothing gets explored quite enough. As well as commenting on the huge divide in wealth it also touches on immigration, the recession, healthcare and totalitarianism. Any one of these things could have provided the focus of the film but instead they're all just background details to help build up the feeling of crappiness for life in the future. I mean, I would rather have a film with too many ideas than one with too few but I guess, ‘too much’ of anything is kind of a problem. Don't forget that on top of this there's also all the cool sci-fi shit to get into as well! The point is that a lot of ideas are great but it's a shame when their quantity is at the expense of really investigating any one of them completely. Imagine it like a locked-up brothel in Amsterdam in which several unobtainable but proper gorgeous whores are standing in the window trying to entice you in. It's not that you don't appreciate them being there but what you really want is the door unlocked so you can get wrist deep into just one of them. If anybody has a less offensively misogynistic metaphor than that then please feel free to send it in on a postcard.

Elysium is the second feature film to be directed by Neill Blomkamp with District 9 being the first. Although the odds are that I didn't need to tell you that, considering the two films share so much with each other. Elysium could really just be District 9's clone having had a shot of steroids stabbed straight into its nut-sack. Both movies can be seen as a metaphor for the apartheid however in the first film it was about sticking the “fooken prowns” in camps whereas this time it's about holding the povvy-poor on shitty Earth. Either way though, it's the same basic idea. The other link that the two films have is that they both feature an amazing performance from the apparently chameleonic Sharlto Copley. Fans of District 9 will remember Copley as the Ned Flanders looking Wikkus whose life goes tits-up when he carelessly shoots himself in the face with a shitty black can of alien jism. Here however he is literally unrecognisable as a psychotic, trampy mercenary with a huge sword and a massive pubey beard. I'm not exaggerating either when I say he was unrecognisable as two of my friends apparently didn't realise it was him at all. This is despite us having watched District 9 the night before and him having a voice more recognisable than the sound of a following-through shart on the bus.

Ah cud do weith sum fook'n 'elp with me brain pleeeese.

Although Copley does steal the film, in my opinion, that's not to say the rest of the cast aren't also equally brilliant. Jodie Foster does her icy bitch thing incredibly well again and this time even manages to treat us to a fun game of 'guess her accent'. Damon is also impressive and remains likeable even when his character turns out to be a full-on fucking creepy freak. Minor spoiler alert coming up now... So as a kid he falls in love with some girl and writes her a love note on himself. Several decades later after the two have well and truly lost contact they reconnect and it turns out he has that childhood message tattooed onto his fucking body. Not only that, but this is played off like a meaningful romantic moment! Err- what?! Let’s just imagine that for one second. So you find someone that you've not spoken to in tens of years and then discover that they've got fucking love notes to you etched permanently into their flesh. That's really not a sign of somebody in love is it? That's the sign of a fucking serial killer. The kind of person who cries himself to sleep whilst wearing his dead mum’s knickers and who’s probably given his favourite butchers knife a lovely ladies name. Still like I said, Damon's acting skill allows you to brush over this development and continue to treat the character as though he isn't an unhinged, murderous pervert. I know that he's wearing that robot suit for practical reasons but based on this revelation I'm surprised he didn't at least enquire about adding a couple of titty clamps too. End of minor spoiler!

So to conclude... Elysium is a great action movie and it's nice to see a film with so many ideas. It's just a small shame that those great ideas are so frequent and fast that it's like listening to an over-excited autistic kid recite an encyclopedia whilst on crack. This might not have been as amazing as District 9 but it was still very good and a great little distraction until Blomkamp's next presumably-brainy movie comes out. Also, who'd have thought that Matt Damon would make such a good Lex Luthor? If the constant rumours of Mark Strong and Bryan Cranston playing the part are anything to go by, the only criteria is apparently to have a massive bald head and Damon does that expertly here. Elysium might not quite be as good as District 9 but that's only because it ambitiously tries to do more and has significantly less scenes of Copley shrieking out “Fook yooo”… however, if you like the idea of mixing various politics themes with guns that turn people into a bastard-puddle of blood and shit then this is certainly the film for you. 

---

Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.

---

John's Got The Hump

Despite ranking a toxically high 9.7 on the geek-o-meter, I've never gotten into the original Star Trek from the 60's. From what I've heard though, the biggest difference between the main series and the new films is the level of action on display. Apparently the show was less about kicking people in the throat and more about philosophising and exploring humanity’s big ideas. Having said that however, there is a clip on YouTube of Shatner's Kirk on all fours pretending to be a horse whilst a dwarf rides on his back. I'm not sure what idea they were exploring here as I'm not sure of the context. Perhaps this is a deep metaphorical investigation into the works of Bertrand Russell or Rene Descartes, however when I see Kirk galloping about all I can think is what a stupid Kant. Having said that there's a part of me that would now like to watch the original show if only for the sake of irony. As though he's a cosmic Roger Moore, the idea of watching Kirk explore a 60's vision of the future and fucking anything with a pair of tits sounds like fun to me.

Released in 2009, the film Star Trek took the series out of the nerds’ bedrooms and made it cool enough for the rest of the world to enjoy. For some reason though, a lot of them seemed to hate it because, “it changed too much from the originals”. But the way I see it, they should be happy because the franchise was successfully rebooted in a way that didn't erase everything that they'd loved from the current cannon. Also by being set in an alternate timeline, these new films also avoided the main prequel problem of there being no real threat because it's obvious the characters will survive into the original films. Maybe I'm not a Trekkie/Trekker but I am a fan of Star Wars and until your franchise is rebooted with a massive fucking racist Jamaican Gungan thing, I've really got no sympathy.

"I knew I shouldn't have studied rocket science..."

Anywho, so Star Trek Into Darkness is all about the story of John Harrison who despite sounding like a fifth member of The Beatles is actually an intergalactic terrorist. Because John is running around blowing shit up like a massive space-twat Kirk is recruited to track him down and kill him. Like Raoul Silva and Loki however, Harrison instead finds himself captured and locked up in one of those giant villain sized fishtanks. The great thing about this film is in just how much of it is an ensemble with almost everybody getting something interesting to do. Kirk and Spock continue their blossoming bromance which involves about the same amount of bickering and sex as a ten year marriage. Scotty gets to run around whilst cracking jokes with his slightly dodgy accent and Uhura continues to prove that the franchise isn't racist. Alice Eve also shows up as Carol Marcus but from what I could gather her only purpose is to flash her pubes for the movie’s trailer and to look pretty. There's also a bit near the end where Carol is put in danger when it looked to me as though someone had just stamped on her vagina.

So before we go any further, I guess I should say that I really loved this film. From the moment it begins to the moment it ends it is just non-stop action. It's as though it was conceived in the racing mind of Oscar Pistorius whilst he enjoys a domestic shoot-out with the missus. However this relentless spectacle, as enjoyable as it is, is possibly one of the movies bigger problems. After watching Iron Man 3 last week I was reminded of just how big a fan of Shane Black I was and so began revisiting his older films. I also slightly lowered my mandatory four hours a day criteria of porn browsing in exchange for finding old interviews with him in which he talks about screenwriting. When asked about the state of the modern action movie he claimed that they were all a bit crap because there's no downtime. Instead, blockbusters these days try to simply deafen the audience by shouting at them for two hours. This is definitely the case with Star Trek Into Darkness which really cuts out the character moments and emotion of its predecessor in exchange for making things go bang a lot of the time. Having said that, there is a slightly hammy but enjoyable little speech by Cumberbatch in which he seems to accidentally morph into Alan Rickman.

In fact, the comparisons to Rickman don't end there with this film also suffering from the same minor problem as Die Hard. Like Hans Gruber, John Harrison is so charismatic and cool that despite the general dickishness, you can't help but find yourself occasionally rooting for them. I know I just criticised the movie for having too much action but the scene in which Harrison shits all over a gang of Klingons is still pretty cool. I also thought that one of the final fights between Harrison and Spock was pretty funny considering the size of their body frame. Back in the 80's action movies were dominated by giant hulk-men whose brains where the size of their steroids-shrunk cocks. Cut to only a few decades later and the beeftards have been replaced by two lanky nerds kicking the shit out of each other. Not only that but the film also features Peter Weller and Karl Urban meaning that director J.J Abrams decided to have his scrawny man-slap instead of a much more epic fight between Robocop and Judge Dredd.

Anyway so we're heading into spoilery territory now so it's about time those who are yet to see the film went for a wander. For the rest of us I'm sure it was a huge surprise to discover that Harrison was actually the series’ main villain of Khan all along. Of course though, by ‘huge surprise’ I mean completely fucking obvious thanks to IMDb thoughtlessly listing the name on their bloody cast list. I'm putting it out there that, that may be the most annoying thing since I asked my Dad if Se7en was any good and his response was, (spoiler alert), “Is that the one that ends with Gwyneth Paltrow's decapitated head in a box”. It took me years to get my revenge on him for that but eventually I seized my moment and locked him in our attic without food and only an angry wasp for company. True story.

For those who don't know, Khan is one of the big baddies of the original Star Trek world and was unsurprisingly the villain in the supposedly brilliant Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan. Personally I've not seen that film but I hear good things about it. From what I do know though, things are the reverse to Into Darkness with the original killing off of Spock instead of Kirk. This of course results in Shatner calling on all of his acting powers to famously scream, “Khaaaaaaaaaaan” with all the anger of man who’s being forced to hold in a particularly rebellious ands jagged shit.  From what I do understand though, the original at least had the balls to kill off Spock and keep him dead until the crappy sequel. In this film sadly, I don't think that anybody is under any illusion that Kirk’s death will be any more permanent than his earlier demotion. Near the start of the film, Kirk is fired, demoted and then promoted back to Captain with so much speed that that if you popped out for a piss you'd have missed it. On the brightside though it's good to know that thanks to Kirks pogo up and down the career ladder that by the year 2259 we'll have finally solved this recession. With all the warring alien races, that's at least something to look forward to.

I heard the supermarket is hiring...

So considering Khan was pretty much new to me, I think, as mentioned earlier that he's probably the best thing in the film. However what did annoy me was that it was his blood that was used to bring Kirk back from the dead. By doing that, there's pretty much no threat now in any future films ever. As soon as anybody dies, all the crew have to do is pop to the fridge, crack open a bottle of Khan juice and generously, drizzle it all over their favourite corpse. In fact the only person who is now in any danger is Bones who I'm assuming will quickly find himself out of a job. It's kind of like how in the original Superman he flies up into space and then backwards around the world to reverse time. From this point on, we've got nothing to worry about at all. Having said that, now people can come back from the dead it's nice to know that the future will be a time in which we can stop banging on about how special Jesus is.

I guess that's pretty much everything I've got to say on Star Trek Into Darkness. I've been writing for too long now and I'm kind of feeling ill after eating an out of date tube of Pringles. Obviously this film gives me even more faith that Star Wars Episode 7 will be great, with Abram’s main skill being to dish out nostalgia for things you're seeing for the first time. Actually if you want a tip, you should go to the bookies and bet money on Benicio Del Toro being the next Star Wars villain. Considering he almost played Khan here and Darth Maul in Episode 1, I reckon he's a dead cert. You heard it here first! Anyway I think I'm going to go and be sick now. Although in case you didn't believe me earlier about Shatner being ridden by a midget then here it is for your viewing pleasure... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avTfiRccYIA

---

Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.

---