she did the same acting she did in INSIDE MAN, which is so annoying.
THRILLER IS MY FOOD!

I disagree

I guess Helen Mirren had already said no to the script?
Pointlessly sadistic plot/characterisation.
My God it's full of stars

Her performance was cartoonish and laughable. Way beneath her.

agreed. she was not only miscast in the role, but didn't put forth any appreciable effort into making her character plausible.

Jodie Foster was playing a french speaking woman, who speaks english, so her accent was deliberately weird and "bad". Kruger (Sharlto Copley) is from Johannesburg so his South African accent was natural.
http://starkart.org

Jodie Foster was playing a french speaking woman, who speaks english, so her accent was deliberately weird and "bad". Kruger (Sharlto Copley) is from Johannesburg so his South African accent was natural.
http://starkart.org

Jodie Foster was playing a french speaking woman, who speaks english, so her accent was deliberately weird and "bad". Kruger (Sharlto Copley) is from Johannesburg so his South African accent was natural.
http://starkart.org

Who are you calling droog?
And how do you know she was attempting a transatlantic accent? That one should be easier than an English accent even!
Mouthal smell is a form of sensory input. See, if you listen carefully, you can hear the mouth.

it was a poor attempt at a transatlantic accent, to be nitpicky about it. and no, droog, it was no horrorshow.

It was all about the accents. I too thought Foster was trying to affect an upper-class English accent but made a real horror show of it. The South African accent was far too strong - I couldn't make head-nor-tail of most of it. To be honest, I initially thought he was trying to be Australian, is was so garbled.
it's just another dumb film, get over it.

I think she was trying to sound English but it was so, so shoddy. Hard R's all over the place and sometimes it was like she forgot her lines (altho that particular bit should be blamed on the director for not doing more takes)
Mouthal smell is a form of sensory input. See, if you listen carefully, you can hear the mouth.

I didn't think anyone was that good in this film. I'm inclined to blame the director. He's supposed to set the tone and rhythm of the film and everything felt pitched a bit too fast and over excited. Also, I wonder how much was chopped out in the editing - there are some well known faces in the cast list but I don't remember seeing any of them.

She was off. True.
But was it intentional ? probably.
maybe that's how Jodie or the director wanted to portray the movie, to differentiate the normal Earth beings from the eternal living Elysium ones. which makes sense how no one on Elysium shows compassion or any emotion (apart from fear) for the earthlings. ergo the very robotic performance.
Don't Shoot the Messenger

I love South African accents it just was so over the top in Elysium. It was so over the top that Kruger's performance single handely caused the poor reviews.

When you say Kruger's accent hurt the movie, do you mean South African accents in general? I happen to like the S.A. accent, but it's so rare to hear it in America maybe that's why it can be hard to understand.

You would think the director of Elysium would have noticed how bad Kruger's accent was hurting the movie. Every time Kruger opened his mouth I could not help but cringe and laugh. Within the hour I turned the sound off and used subtitles so I did not have to hear his voice. Jodie Foster's acting was bad beyond belief. How could the director not know this?

I have to agree. Her delivery was SO off.
I found myself wondering if it was intentional (i. e. the director wanted it that way). If so I cant understand why.
If it weren't for the even more unbearable Kruger character and his grating delivery/accent she'd easily have been the worst part of this - already mediocre - movie.

I don't know, Butchie, instead.