Rating: 
Summary: Boring, Zero Insight
Review: If you want to watch 2 boring hours of kids walking hallways in a highschool where everyone looks like they shop at Abercrombie & Fitch with no character development or any insight into the killer's minds, this one is for you. I swear the whole movie is kids walking the halls, a kid playing a piano for 10 minutes, 5 minutes of kids getting randomly shot. Thats it. Boring and pointless. I like independent films by the way. I am not a strictly T3 or Matrix guy. This movie just plain (isn't good)!!
Rating: 
Summary: Do you remember high school?
Review: As a high school student, I found this movie very powerful as well as truthful. When I walk through the halls, I don't know everyones life story, their personalities, their "character" isn't developed to me. The audience's relationship with the characters in "elephant" is the same as the people you see everyday but don't bother to get to know. Did the killers know the people they murdered? The character development in this movie is not important because in high school knowing people outside of your group isn't important.
People don't realize the affect they have on others. I feel that some of the reviewers misinterpreted the meaning of this movie. I don't feel it was meant to explain school shootings or relive Columbine, but to give an honest look at how oblivious we are of one another.
Never have I been so disturbed from a film soley because of the truth behind it. And frankly, I'm not looking forward to going to school on monday.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: All you need to know is this: instead of listening to snobs, critics and prisoners of political ideology, watch the film. Gus Van Sant takes material that has been previously overdramatized and misunderstood and creates a film that uses the subject matter not as a controversial marketing ploy, but as a deep exploration of the "culture of Violence." No explanations are offered, no theories presented, and no melodramatic portrayal of violence. This film pulls the audience into a day of high-school that ends in death. It is an amazingly focused film that may come off as "Arty" but is a truly amazing Anti-drama that follows and listens to the characters, but never puts words into their mouths. Amazing.
Rating:
Summary: van Sant offers no new perspective--a greatly overrated film
Review: I have lived in Littleton Colorado now for 7 years--my partner and I are in the Columbine Valley subdivision only 4 miles from Columbine High School, the basis for van Sant's award-winning film. Several of my neighbors have children who were at Columbine during the massacre, and some of those students have never returned to the school; they have finished high school elsewhere in Denver. The legacy of Columbine is something I am reminded of every time I drive by the school on my way to and from our local library. Columbine is a part of Littleton's history now, unfortunately, it is still visited by tourists wanting to take their picture in front of the school's marquee.Why Gus van Sant has been lauded by the critics and received the Cannes Film Festival's highest award, the Palme d'Or (for Best Film) is puzzling to me. We just went to see Elephant today, and the theatre maybe had two dozen viewers at midday. Whether it will play more widely in the Denver area remains to be seen. I certainly will not recommend it to anyone I know personally. I have not yet seen Zero Day, or another film I have heard about starring Erika Christensen called Homeroom, that was filmed in Littleton in the past year. I will certainly look for these other films after reading some of the other reviews posted here. As a footnote I have seen Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine, which does show actual surveillance footage that was recorded during the shooting. Without commenting on that film too much, suffice to say watching those four minutes of video had a much greater impact than anything van Sant has cobbled together in Elephant. The photography is composed of little more than extremely long and ineffective tracking shots that follow the characters around at very close range. Evidently these shots replace any meaningful dialogue or insight into the characters' lives, emotions or actions. While I fully understand the movie is based on the events at Columbine, it is possible some who see it will take everything they see at face value and as factual. Van Sant takes some liberties with suppositions of the last day of the two killer's lives. There is one element concerning them that I found offensive in that it seems to have been written into the film soley for "shock value" and little else. The scene to which I'm referring does nothing to enlighten us as to the killers' frame of mind, or what exactly set them off on this day of murder and revenge. I felt no connection and no sympathy to any of the characters, save for Michelle, who was meek and awkward in her phys ed class, and felt awkward in general. She seemed to be one of two characters for whom there was a sense of their being outsiders. The other character who displayed real emotion is John, who was dealing with his drunk father on the way back to school. Other than these two students, you only got two-dimensional and very stereotypical portraits: the blonde hottie girl, the jock with the cute girlfriend, the nerdy guy with the camera,etc. I had expected to respond more to this film. The theatre's ticket window even suggested that some patrons who are connected to Columbine might find it difficult to watch. The film never delivered any real impact, just some needlessly graphic violence as we see blood splattering and bodies falling all over the school. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME--I am disappointed to say the very least.
Rating:
Summary: An 'elephant' you'll never foregt
Review: I was one of the first people to see Gus Van Sant's new film
elephant. It had it's North American debut here in Portland Oregon. All I can say about the film is that it's nothing less
than amazing. Elephant is a tender,fiercely intelligent,achingly
beautiful,and in the end,properly upsetting meditation on the
Columbine massacare and other similar incidents of high school violence. Elephant is composed of seemingly incompatible elements that rub against one another as disturbingly as in an anxiety dream, it is as elusive-intellectually and emotionally-as the real-life horror it references.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated, overly arty
Review: Gun Van Sant has nothing to say about the Columbine massacre. Strange that Elephant got so much praise (most notably at Cannes) when I found Zero Day to be the far superior film on the topic. Zero Day had suspense, it had drame, all of it oozing from the mock home video style presentation. Elephant, on the other hand, is about Gun Van Sant with an overly artsy look at high school. There is no statement, there is no drama, there is Van Sant's excrutiatingly long tracking shots following students around the building, around the corners, into the classrooms, through the cafeteria, through the library, through the bathrooms, through the fields, and then, sometimes, following them again through the same scene from a different angle. We don't get to know much about the killers; instead we got some cheap and frankly, ill advised scenes of them watching Nazi history shows, playing a first person shooter video game, and ordering guns from the internet in an almost laughable scene that damages the credibility. (The last movie I saw with a character getting a mail order gun was Death Wish 3). Then, with no regard for secrecy, they take their new civilian assault rifle to the garage and merrily take target practice on a woodpile while neighbors are oblivious. The scene drips with cynicism that hides behind the arsty presentation. And perhaps worst of all, before the big day when they slaughter their fellow students and teachers, the two teen boys shower together and share a kiss in a scene where taste is lost and artistic license fumbled. At 81 minutes, this is a padded out 'celebration' on the nothingness of adolescence, or at least that's what it seemed like. The film did nothing for nearly an hour, and then, awful as it sounds, I was really waiting for the shooting to finally start. The film then gets really offensive. Zero Day handled it all brilliantly. Since it was all home and found video, the shootings were seen as we saw them: from the high school security cameras, with a 911 operator speaking over it. Instead of boring me to tears it created a deeper tension because of the time spent with the characters in their little world. We didn't need to see the massacre in such detail since we now knew what happened. There is a second hand drama from the black and white CCT images and the sparse sound that is so mundane it's creepy. Van Sant's approach is to follow the students around as they shoot everyone in sight and as they sadistically taunt their victims, including the principal. Since there is no concern with focusing on characters long enough to develop anything about them (thoughts, feelings) these scenes become drawn out and pointless as well. It's all an arbitrary feeling of presentation that sucks the life and the power out of the real life events. Since there is no character development of any kind, only fragments of people doing everyday things, all captured by Van Sant's indulgent camera, even these scenes lose some power, even when there are definite jolts from the sudden stutter of rifle fire on screen, and the long, drawn out death sequences. It's downright offensive to so cheaply use this event for a lame attempt at an art film, complete with Beethoven on the soundtrack, another choice that indicates the filmmakers don't care about reality. Sadly, at two moments I was reminded of other teen films, namely Carrie (the girl nervously changing in the girls' locker room) and Heathers (the triple bullimic vomiting scene in the stalls), which ruined the tone even more. Even a good title is wasted, since the 'elephants' no one wants to see are shown as different from the other kids only with the cliched previous scenes and a distinct lack of concern for any development or honesty. They do come off as sad and pathetic, and that's an easy and one-sided result that lesser films could achieve with ease. Seek out Zero Day for an excellent film on high school shootings. There is talent behind the camera and it's one of the most interesting films to use the video tape framework to tell a story. The difference is that that film did not try and cater to an international audience with the heavyhanded pretensions of Van Sant, who looks like he's trying to make half a Larry Clark film. Van Sant, who did coproduce Kids, should have given this project to that director. One thing about Larry Clark, he's never boring. This is an overrated and flat out pretensious film from a director who once made a shot by shot remake of Psycho.
Rating:
Summary: He Lurks Among You
Review: Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" offers no excuses, illuminates little but still has the emotional and social wallop of the discharge of a hunting rifle. Set in a high school and inspired by the Columbine shootings of 1999, "Elephant" depicts pieces of a day in the life of several high school students leading up to the penultimate event of the shootings.
The structure of the film is, to say the least, loose: Van Sant jumps forward and back in time so we see the same event from a number of different angles. And it is not until we see a couple of the students armed that we realize that something bad, very bad is going to happen. Van Sant's mise en scene is scattered, brightly light, all formica and vinyl tile and huge dirty windows...lots of windows.
Van Sant builds up a dreadful amount of suspense merely by the piling on of mundane scenes that get more frenzied and out of control by the minute. You know what is going to happen and god help you; you can't wait for it to start just to relieve the tension.
"Elephant" (thusly named because of the psychologically induced big animal sitting in the midst of the high school that no one can nor wants to see) shows us what we don't want to see. It offers no answers. It leaves us stunned, eyes wide, breath short. We are moved to seek answers on our own, to offer consolation to those around us and to ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Surreal
Review: Not many people saw this movie in theatres, which is probably a shame; I think the mood of the film would be enhanced by being trapped in your seat the entire time. Gus Van Sant takes advantage of the fact that you already know what his movie is about: a high school shooting. He uses your knowledge to his advantage by playing on the tension you inevitably feel as you wonder, "Will it happen now? Now? Now?" Framing his shots to limit your view, he lets you wonder, all through the movie, what is going on just outside the frame--and eventually forces you to think about how, if many of the kids you're watching would do the same and think about things outside of their own small worlds, the tragic end of the movie might never arrive. But the movie doesn't offer solutions nearly as neat and tidy as that; it simply allows a day to unfold before your eyes, lets you see the world as it's experienced by both the killers and their victims, and shows both how hard it is to see the signs that someone is capable of such a massacre and how easy it might be if people would only pay attention. And then there's the kiss, which has caused Van Sant no small amount of frustration. Without ruining the tension for those of you who choose to give 80 minutes to this movie, I can tell you that at one point the two killers, about to head for school to act out their plan, get in the shower together--or does one ambush the other? I'm really not sure if the first occupant of the shower knows the second will join him; I don't think we're meant to think that this has happened before. But he walks in, joins his only friend, and says, "Today's the day we're going to die...I never even kissed anyone, did you?" Then the two friends, alienated by the rest of the world, are kissing; the shot lingers long enough to make it clear this is more than a quick kiss goodbye--more like an extended, naked make-out session in the shower. And then it's over, and the rest of the movie unfolds, including one event, which I'd love to discuss with anyone who sees it, that made me reinterpret the whole friendship between the two killers and their individual reactions to what happens in the shower. I've made this movie sound like it's filled with action, which isn't fair to those who might consider watching it; much of the 80-minute length of the film is ordinary stuff, like walking down long hallways and playing football and developing film and playing the piano, and much of this plays out without dialogue. I was proud of myself at the end for not speeding up the movie to get down those hallways or get that film developed and clipped; the slight boredom I felt gave my dread an opportunity to build. In the end, this is not an easy film; it won't tell you what you should think about it, and you may not be able to decide on your own what to think, either. I know I haven't. But I'm thinking about it, and that's got to count for something.
Rating:
Summary: If nothing else, an evocative portrait of high school
Review: Gus Van Sant's ELEPHANT is ostensibly about the Columbine incident; that is certainly what spurred me on to watch the film in the first place. But when I saw this film the first time, the thing I responded to most was its elegant recreation of high school. The atmosphere, the rhythms, the people---it captures all these things with uncanny accuracy, and it certainly brought me back to my own high school experience. If nothing else, it's an objective portrait of a normal high school and various characters that attend it on what appears to be a normal day until two of its characters (both outsiders, of course) tragically shake it up with pointless death and destruction. It's a movie that merely looks on dispassionately as people talk and things both significant and insignficant happen at this high school. It refuses to make cheap melodrama out of any of the situations or characters, and it absolutely refuses to provide any reassuring answers to explain what could have lead up to this terrible incident. Perhaps there simply aren't any easy answers to be found (despite what politicians, activist groups, and other fearmongers have offered in the past). A movie about the Columbine incident was bound to be made eventually---it is too disturbing and has caused too much discussion for it to be ignored by the cinema. This was the probably the only way it could be done without cheapening it in any way. Other films might take the incident and fashion a big subjective statement out of it, like Michael Moore did with his illuminating Academy Award-winning documentary BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. ELEPHANT takes a more objective fictional route, and anything less than the definitive film about Columbine, now and in the near future, would be hard to imagine. But to label it simply a "Columbine film" is too limiting: it also works as an evocative portrait of the high school experience, and it does so in a manner that could be best described as undramatic yet strangely hypnotic. Highly recommended, though decidedly not for all tastes.
Rating:
Summary: THIS IS, LIKE, SO DEEP AND STUFF
Review: I'm amazed a film like this could sweep awards at Cannes, or any festival. The camera floats around an ordinary school, tracking students' lives, nothing special, your average day stuff, in what seemed like a thinly veiled take on the Columbine tragedy of school shootings. There are no good guys and bad guys, every character is made sympathetic simply by being real, by being himself, by being human. This includes the two weirdos who go on a rampage, who played violent video games (like most teenagers) and watched documentaries on Hitler with rapt attention. Not sure if this was an implied cause, or just a nonchalant and thus somehow artistic trope. That's it. That's the plot. One of the "spotlight reviews" on this site mentions how the lack of a point was in fact the point. Well that's good for life but capturing life as-is on film, without any perspective or any cinematic accoutrement at all, is a bit pointless if not outright stupid. "Elephant" seems like a deliberately point-of-view-less film, much like its title, which has nothing to do with anything in the movie. So if you, like the French, have a taste for a sequence of screens that do not necessarily need to hinge around a semblance of a theme or purpose, you'll be in entertainment heaven. Grab your six packs and discuss motives and perspective and all those lovely film theory things long into the sunset. For the rest of us, thank god there's a 16x skip functionality on my DVD that's like a fast forward on steroids, or better still, there are a billion other more interesting + intelligent ways to waste time.
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