Elysium
30 Aug

After the awesomeness that was District 9, South African director and writer Neill Blomkamp returns with Elysium. It’s all-star sci-fi action with the title attracting massive names the likes of Matt Damon (our hero – Max De Costa) and Jodie Foster (the baddie – Secretary Rhodes).

In 2154 the rich live in the beautiful space station called Elysium, while the rest suffer back on Earth. Max needs to get to Elysium in order receive life-saving treatment, but Rhodes stands in his way, unleashing the powerful Kruger (our own Sharlto Copley, better known as Wikus) to stop him. Will a bigger budget empower Blomkamp’s talents? We can only hope. 

Now you see me
9 Aug

In 2008 dark magicians known as Bankers pulled off the world’s most terrifying magic trick – the vanishing of millions of dollars, the disappearance of thousands of jobs and the subsequent sinking of the world’s economy. Now a group of illusionists known as the Four Horsemen is returning the favour, making money disappear out of bank vaults and into their audience’s laps.

How do they do it? Well Interpol wants to find out, but this sleight of hand won’t reveal itself easily. Watch out for Jesse Eisenberg who played Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network.

The East
16 Aug

If your company is destroying the environment, you should suffer too. That’s the idea behind anarchist group The East, who is bringing the pain to a number of large corporation. A private intelligence firm tasks Sarah (Brit Marling, Another Earth) to infiltrate the group in order to bring it down with the usual undercover suspense to follow.

The kid-faced Allen Page, who we’ve seen in Inception and Juno, plus Michael Caine also stars.  

Pacific Rim (read the full review)
2 Aug

While director Guillermo Del Toro might have been lost to the world of the The Hobbit, it did leave him with time on his hands to sculpt Pacific Rim. And what can be better than watching massive robots fighting mighty monsters from the sea?

It’s a tried and tested formula in Mecha anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and personally we can’t wait to see Del Toro bring this to life on the big screen. In bad news for Hellboy fans, Del Toro recently stated that Hellboy 3 might be too expensive to produce.

Article first appeared in TechSmart 119.