Tom Cruise Vs. Matt Damon…heh.
To me these movies look almost interchangeable…LOL, but which one will be
a better movie? Better Box office?
My odds are on ELYSIUM, as the director on this one made the interesting
DISTRICT 9…OBLIVION director’s last film was…(cough, hacking up a loogie, spits)
the awful TRON LEGACY.
Oblivion Official Trailer #1 Tom Cruise Sci-Fi Movie HD - YouTube
Elysium TRAILER 1 (2013) - Matt Damon Movie HD - YouTube
Better box office? Gotta go with Oblivion. Hard to bet against Tom Cruise at the box office, plus I have seen a much bigger marketing campaign for Oblivion.
EDIT: I see Elysium isn’t being released until august which is probably why I haven’t seen the marketing campaign.
Better movie? Who the hell knows.
It seems there’s a lot of fashion in post-apocalyptic, dystopian settings for 2013, both of these and that Will Smith movie set to release. (If any of these I would expect to be awful, it’s that one, for innumerable reasons.)
I expect Oblivion to be good, not great, not bad, good. Tom Cruise’s niche is in the action movie genre and he’s a pretty capable actor himself, but that’s not to say he always aligns himself with the right projects and can be relied upon to bring us a great movie, disregarding how good he would be acting within it. I feel like Kosinski can learn from his Legacy mistakes to make a movie that’s somewhat better, but I don’t see him being legitimately effective enough to actually make something that will stand out, I expect this to be fun, but nothing special.
Blomkamp on the other hand, has proven himself to be capable of creating a genuine and well made expression of art and I expect his take on this style of film to be far more in line with what he’s good at. Matt Damon is of course a brilliant actor and we already know he’s certainly able to pull off great pieces of action-oriented work from his Bourne franchise, if there’s anyone I’m expecting to take the better “job” here, it would be him. Not to mention I’ve always seen Jodie Foster to be a capable, rich, powerful, semi-villain and this is finally my chance to see her take that on in Elysium.
Both directors are inexperienced and their work is not substantial enough for me to really formulate an educated opinion on the director themselves. But from what each of them have made already, it seems obvious to me that District 9 would come out the better film 100% of the time. On that standing, I expect Elysium to take lead here. I expect neither to be bad, but Elysium has more going for it. Plus I think the premise sounds way cooler, so there’s that.
Concerning how well they will do in Box Office, I would take Oblivion just down to Cruise’s reputation and marketability here. That’s not to say that it at all matters, because as we all know, a movie with more attention does not mean it’s necessarily a great movie. Pick out any random ten from the recent box office statistics and I guarantee at least six of them to be mediocre or offensively sub-par.
Ehhh, IDK…Cruise is still marketable, and pushing 51 years old that’s nothing to sneeze
at…just don’t overlook the diector’s last film that as hint to the quality
of the picture…did anybody notice how hollow at the core TRON LEGACY was?
It looked great, but was disappointing and shallow.
And this is coming from someone who LOVED the original TRON…Ebert gave that 4 stars BTW.
I think Cruise is beginning to ‘jump the shark’ a bit, His appearance in the awful ROCK OF AGES
didn’t seem to help the film, and ‘Jack Reacher’ although did damn good box office at around 80 mil, is
coming up short on his past, consistent 100 mil plus box office receipts Hollywood used to
comfortably rely on from him.
I predict OBLIVION will do better at the box office as well, but IMHO I predict ELYSIUM will be the better film, and the one with the better reviews.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’m usually not up to date regarding upcoming film releases.
Stoked for Elysium, totally so. I thoroughly enjoyed the gritty look of District 9 (it has a certain 80s vibe to it, although I can’t point my finger as to why, exactly - still mesmerized by the Mechs / Exoskeletons alone), love me an action sci-fi flick with slick visuals attempting to make some social commentary. It seems to have a lot of promising ingredients and even makes a passing reference to Iron Man. Still a tad disappointed, though: when I saw that Elysium habitat, I was hoping to be shown a Dyson Sphere, too. ;(
Oblivion? Not so much.
After Earth? Cypher Raige? Need I say more?
Elysium = In Time + District 9 + Iron Man
[quote]IFlashBack wrote:
Elysium = In Time + District 9 + Iron Man[/quote]
Funny you should say that, I hear the Oblivion director is on call for a Logan’s Run remake in the future.
Logan’s Run…Oh Man, If it wasn’t for the mind of Chris Nolan, we wouldn’t have ANY
fresh and new Sci-Fi films out there.
IMHO, Off the top of my head the very best Sci-fi of recent years NOT based from any books have
been The first MATRIX movie, and INCEPTION…that’s pretty much it.
And anyone who dares to even mention AVATAR, I will reach you through the space time continuum
and bitch slap you through your computer screen.
lol.
Just curious, have any of you guys read the plot for Oblivion?
[quote]IFlashBack wrote:
Just curious, have any of you guys read the plot for Oblivion? [/quote]
Doesn’t that like ruin the point of going to go see the movie? lol
[quote]Karado wrote:
Logan’s Run…Oh Man, If it wasn’t for the mind of Chris Nolan, we wouldn’t have ANY
fresh and new Sci-Fi films out there.
IMHO, Off the top of my head the very best Sci-fi of recent years NOT based from any books have
been The first MATRIX movie, and INCEPTION…that’s pretty much it.
And anyone who dares to even mention AVATAR, I will reach you through the space time continuum
and bitch slap you through your computer screen.
lol.
[/quote]
You shouldn’t have mentioned Inception: while enjoyable, it is utter rubbish sci-wise. Over-hyped and inconsistent in itself.
[quote]IFlashBack wrote:
Just curious, have any of you guys read the plot for Oblivion? [/quote]
Yeah, Drone engineer is stationed to repair mining drones that will retrieve the last remaining natural resources from a since barren Earth, Cruise gets captured by rebel forces and saves some lady he sees in his dreams, but has no memory of, and spends the rest of the time not knowing who to trust and trying to find out who she is. It sounds like an actiony and not so promising version of Duncan Jones’ “Moon” with a few tweaks here and there.
[quote]Karado wrote:
Logan’s Run…Oh Man, If it wasn’t for the mind of Chris Nolan, we wouldn’t have ANY
fresh and new Sci-Fi films out there.
IMHO, Off the top of my head the very best Sci-fi of recent years NOT based from any books have
been The first MATRIX movie, and INCEPTION…that’s pretty much it.
And anyone who dares to even mention AVATAR, I will reach you through the space time continuum
and bitch slap you through your computer screen.
lol.
[/quote]
What did you think of Looper?
[quote]Derek542 wrote:
[quote]Karado wrote:
Logan’s Run…Oh Man, If it wasn’t for the mind of Chris Nolan, we wouldn’t have ANY
fresh and new Sci-Fi films out there.
IMHO, Off the top of my head the very best Sci-fi of recent years NOT based from any books have
been The first MATRIX movie, and INCEPTION…that’s pretty much it.
And anyone who dares to even mention AVATAR, I will reach you through the space time continuum
and bitch slap you through your computer screen.
lol.
[/quote]
What did you think of Looper?[/quote]
Looper’s a solid mention, I forgot to bring that up. The backline of the story has it’s flaws and such, but that’s just something you have to expect from something that holds dearly to a time-travel theme, it’s doomed to be littered with paradoxes and such before the script is even made. On that note, Primer is a film that has a brilliant interpretation of time travel. Not such a great film in and of itself, but the time travel shtick is the best I’ve probably ever seen, it comes as close as it can to having a flawless “law” of time travel.
For the rest of Looper, I loved it. I like the idea behind the time contracts and (spoilers…) especially the idea of terminating a contract by killing your future self and getting a ridiculous payday. I like the dynamic between JGL and Willis, I loved the idea behind the kid, and I was a huge fan of the ending. The only other thing I would say I dislike about it, is Levitt’s ridiculous greaser makeup, but that’s very minor.
Yeah, LOOPER is in the upper echelon of Sci-Fi of the last 15-20 years, I would also add GATTICA to the list…What blows me away is no one in Hollywood has bought the rights to make a film version of Dean Koontz book LIGHTNING yet, what an outstanding time travel/paradox story that is that truly goes into some completely unpredictable yet logical directions that doesn’t ‘cheat’ the
reader nor insult his intelligence.
'Best to just get the paperback and read it ‘cold’ as some reviews give away a bit too much of the plot.
Another Sci-Fi film I liked was actually a remake, however very few Americans saw the original anyway which justified remaking it, and that was SOLARIS with George Clooney.
I know that’s controversial because some said it was ‘slow’ and ‘boring’…yada yada, the Russian version was just as slow and ran for 3 fuckin’ hours.
If you want explosions rent TRANSFORMERS…I liked SOLARIS and am adding it to the list of good fairly recent thought provoking Sci-Fi.
[quote]Karado wrote:
Dean Koontz book LIGHTNING yet, what an outstanding time travel/paradox story that is that truly goes into some completely unpredictable yet logical directions that doesn’t ‘cheat’ the
reader nor insult his intelligence.
'Best to just get the paperback and read it ‘cold’ as some reviews give away a bit too much of the plot.
[/quote]
Thank you for that.
I used to be a big Koontz reader, but stopped reading about 15 years ago.
[quote]FattyFat wrote:
[quote]Karado wrote:
Logan’s Run…Oh Man, If it wasn’t for the mind of Chris Nolan, we wouldn’t have ANY
fresh and new Sci-Fi films out there.
IMHO, Off the top of my head the very best Sci-fi of recent years NOT based from any books have
been The first MATRIX movie, and INCEPTION…that’s pretty much it.
And anyone who dares to even mention AVATAR, I will reach you through the space time continuum
and bitch slap you through your computer screen.
lol.
[/quote]
You shouldn’t have mentioned Inception: while enjoyable, it is utter rubbish sci-wise. Over-hyped and inconsistent in itself.
[/quote]
Man I loved Inception.
And Avatar! Lol - I’m about to get slapped! ; )
.
[quote]Karado wrote:
Off the top of my head the very best Sci-fi of recent years NOT based from any books have
been The first MATRIX movie,
[/quote]
Zis iz not true!
Ze Matrix was based on Simulacron 3 a German sci-fi novel.
It appears in the film too, just before Neo leaves the appartment.