Elysium begins with a good, angry, satirical premise: It’s the year 2154 and Earth has been polluted to the point where the rich have decamped for a humongous, ring-shaped super-space-station in orbit — a paradise of manicured lawns, swimming pools, robot servants and even machines that cure cancer in, like, 15 seconds.
It’s called Elysium, and, down below, the poor in their dirty slums gaze on it like the brass ring on an old merry-go-round. But it’s hard for them to immigrate. Elysium’s defense secretary welcomes the undocumented with guided missiles.
The writer-director is 33-year-old South African Neill Blomkamp, who in his Oscar-nominated sci-fi action picture District 9 re-imagined apartheid with giant shrimp from outer space. There’s nothing as audacious in Elysium, but then this is a studio film with major stars.
Matt Damon plays Max, a luckless parolee who once had big dreams but has since been beaten down. He wants only to keep his dangerous factory job and stay out of trouble. The problem is that he has a way of mouthing off to authority figures — especially a cheap-looking robotic dummy that won’t let him speak.