Maleficent (2014) - Jolie shines in effects spectacle

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An eerily horned but voluptuously red-lipped Angelina Jolie ensconces an idyllic Sleeping Beauty on this delectable poster for Robert Stromberg's Maleficent

 

In fairy land the powerful fairy Maleficent rules, but humans are wary of her, and the king covets her wings. This becomes the seed for a long drama.

Maleficent is written by Linda Woolverton (The Lion King (1994)), loosely based on Charles Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty/La Belle au bois Dormant (1330-1344) and Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959), and directed by debuting Robert Stromberg (Avatar (2009, production designer)).

Angelina Jolie (Without Evidence (1995)) is really good as the majestic anti-hero in a film with smashing effects, which makes audiences want to see it in 3D. Elle Fanning (The Nutcracker in 3D (2010)) is lovely as the princess, and the mix of colorful environments, action, darkness and cheer works out well.

The film develops into a kind of revisionist struggle, matriarchy vs patriarchy, but unfortunately the fight is too uneven and seems settled in advance; despite Jolie's gothic horns and cheekbone prosthetics she is still so much more sympathetic in all of her mega-star might than the miscast Sharlto Copley (Oldboy (2013)), who seems deeply villainous as the king, with his hideous South-African accent and ungainly exterior. (Someone like Michael Shannon would have been a much better and more thrilling match for the part.)

Maleficent is still a good alternative fairytale spectacle for (almost) the whole family.

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 180 - 263 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: 758.4 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.35 times its cost; some uncertainty)

[Maleficent premiered 28 May (Los Angeles + 9 other markets) and runs 97 minutes. A reported 15 drafts were made prior to production. The film was intended to be animated, before Jolie was cast. Shooting took place in England from June - October 2012. A 37 mil. $ tax rebate was given the production from the UK authorities. John Lee Hancock was hired to help Stromberg with reshoots of the film's beginning. Jolie was paid a 15 mil. $ salary, which grew to 33 mil. $ with profit participation. The film opened #1 to a 69.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 4 weeks in the top 5 (#2-#3-#5-#5) and grossed 241.4 mil. $ (31.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 63.2 mil. $ (8.3 %) and China with 47.7 mil. $ (6.3 %). It became Jolie's highest-grossing film to date and the year's 4th highest-grossing film over-all. The film was nominated for the Best Costume Design Oscar, lost to The Grand Budapest Hotel. It was also nominated for 2 BAFTAs and several other honors. A less successful sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, directed by Joachim Rønning, was released with Jolie back in the title role in 2019. Stromberg returned with 6 short and TV projects and has bio-drama Relativity in pre-production. Jolie returned in By the Sea (2015). Maleficent is rotten at 54 % with a 5.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Maleficent?

Elysium (2013) - Blomkamp's second feature is a pompous, tedious sci-fi exercise

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Matt Damon is bald, wears strange metallic extensions and finds himself in space on this poster for Neill Blomkamp's Elysium

In the year 2154, the world is a miserable place, where people speak Spanish, are dirty and poor, listen to bad hiphop and all dream of escaping to the space station Elysium, where the rich few live a jet set life, wearing white clothes and speaking French.

This ridiculously shallow premise is rolled out here as a highly improbable future scenario, as simplistic as it is dumb. Elysium is written and directed by Neill Blomkamp (Chappie (2015)), whose sci-fi sensation debut District 9 (2009) also really wasn't my cup of tea. 
Jodie Foster (Paper Moon (1974), TV-series) gets wasted in the part of the tough space leader. Matt Damon (Gerry (2002)) is boring in the lead and goes into a predictable Bourne fist fight mode a while into Elysium. Blomkamp's District 9 star and fellow South-African Sharlto Copley (Europa Report (2013)) plays an off-putting villain here.
Elysium's implicit societal critique and warnings lie comfortably in the same shallow, unapplicable, leftist vein as District 9, where Blomkamp's opinions are still expressed rather weakly and without binding him to anything really. Above all this space actioner is unmerited and enormously dull.

Related posts:

Neill Blomkamp: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
District 9 (2009) - Blomkamp's strenuous, sci-fi-dressed Johannesburg squalor

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 115 mil. $
Box office: 286.1 mil. $
= Minor flop (according to Film Excess' ratio standards; according to Sony, it made an 18 mil. $ profit)
[Elysium premiered 7 August (Taiwan) and runs 109 minutes. Blomkamp has stated that although the film is set far in the future, the themes of immigration, overpopulation, health care, worker exploitation, social class issues and the justice system are meant as comments on the world of today. Blomkamp initially wanted South-African rapper Watkin Tudor Jones for the lead, then Eminem. None proved possible, and Damon was the third choice. He shaved his head for the film. Shooting took place in British Colombia, Canada, including Vancouver, and in Mexico City, Mexico from July - September 2011 with re-shoots in October 2012. A screenplay copyright infringement lawsuit was filed against Elysium's producers in 2013, but its conclusion has not been made public. The film opened #1 to a 29.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for one more week (#3) and grossed 93 mil. $ (32.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 25.6 mil. $ (8.9 %) and Russia with 15.8 mil. $ (5.5 %). Although its gross makes it a minor flop according to Film Excess' ratio standards, the 2013 Sony hack revealed that Sony itself assessed that the film made an 18 mil. $ profit. Blomkamp admitted in 2015 about Elysium that he "fucked it up" because his script "just wasn't there; the story wasn't fully there." He returned with Chappie (2015), and Damon returned in The Zero Theorem (2013). Elysium is fresh at 67 % with a 6.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Elysium?

The A-Team (2010) - Carnahan and stars present a poorly made noise factory

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+ Worst Poster of the Year

Two major stars (Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson), a foreign medium-level star (Sharlto Copley) and an MMA fighter (Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson) are apparently in the middle of nowhere, well-equipped with guns on this obviously photo-shopped poster for Joe Carnahan's The A-Team

Four dynamic US Army Ranger pals are the A-Team, who break out, when they are locked up, and take orders from a sneaky CIA-type to secure a money press from falling into the wrong hands.

This is convoluted into an incomprehensible story in The A-Team, served behind a demonstratively shallow and brainless plate of macho action, which is apparently supposed to succeed based on lots of noise and the tone set, which is one of permanent overgrown teenage male swagger. Any relation to the real world is almost non-existing, and no one in the cast distinguish themselves here, playing characters that seem a veritable parade of idiots. The four heroes often find themselves in scenes, where they are sweating and yelling profusely, while dubious CGI effects inform us that they are in great danger.
A couple of scenes are lightly amusing, and The A-Team is completely unpretentious, - but these are negligible mitigating circumstances, when the film is this bad. It is written by Brian Bloom (Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016, video game), Skip Woods (Swordfish (2001)) and co-writer-director Joe Carnahan (The Grey (2011)), based on the same-titled 1983-87 NBC TV-series.

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch a teaser for the film here

Cost: 100 mil. $ (110 mil. $ before tax credit)
Box office: 177.2 mil. $
= Big flop
[The A-Team premiered 3 June (Hollywood) and runs 119 minutes. Development began in the mid 1990s, and John Singleton was one point supposed to direct the film. Filming took place in Norway and in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, including in Vancouver, from September - December 2009. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release The Karate Kid, to a 25.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for another 2 weeks (#3; #5) and grossed 77.2 mil. $ (43.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 15.2 mil. $ (8.6 %) and France with 9.1 mil. $ (5.1 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1½/4 star review, equal to its rating here. The poor box office performance killed plans for a sequel. Neeson in 2012 called the film 'confusing'. The A-Team is rotten at 47 % with a 5.4/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The A-Team?

District 9 (2009) - Blomkamp's strenuous, sci-fi-dressed Johannesburg squalor

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An evocative, volatile poster for Neill Blomkamp's District 9

QUICK REVIEW:

An alien life-form has landed its massive spaceship over Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1982, and have been rescued out of it to stay in a slum part of the city. Now, they are to be moved to a new area.

I wasn't captivated by District 9 the first time I saw it. And seeing it again, I find that I like it even less now than I did at first. It is the feature debut of South African writer-director Neill Blomkamp (Elysium (2013)), who wrote it with Terri Tatchell (Chappie (2015)), based on his short Alive in Joburg (2005).
The main reason for my dislike of the film, which has a huge (for me inexplicable) attraction on many people, is the protagonist, who serves as the anchor of the film: He is a bureaucrat with no extenuating qualities whatsoever, who we are nonetheless required to shower with our deference and attention in order to take in District 9 the way it's supposed to be taken in. Sharlto Copley (The A-Team (2010)) plays him like a real moron, who I fast felt I didn't want to hang out with at all.
There are no other nice humans in the film as well, and the 'prawns' (the derogatory slang for the aliens) are repugnant in the extreme. So my problem with District 9 basically is that I don't want any of them to win anything. And that I don't give a rat's butt what happens to any of them.
Blomkamp has served up his native city in as ugly a scoop as he could have made here, and he tells the story as if it's the work of a documentary crew. District 9 is full of disgusting scenes and ugliness, little to no charm or music and no stars to break the fall for someone with no penchant for aggressively ugly science fiction-coated, pontificating squalor such as this. 
Pontificating about what, you might ask? - Something about racism, slum existence and dehumanization. - South Africa has massive slum, social and cultural problems, which the aliens become an integral part of here.
The film has striking effects, creatures and CGI. Watching it makes me so happy to live in a country that is distinctly not South Africa.

Related post:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 30 mil. $
Box office: 210.8 mil. $
= Huge hit
[I obviously can't really explain what made people fall over their own feet to get to watch this film, but they did: It opened #1 in North America with a 37.3 mil. $ opening weekend and grossed 115.5 mil. $ (55 % of the total gross) there. It was met with great reviews and was even 4-time Oscar-nominated: For Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Visual Effects and Editing, - becoming the first found-footage movie to be nominated for Best Picture.]

What do you think of District 9?
What stroke of genius is it that I am missing ... ?