On the one hand "Elysium" is the last of this year's summer blockbusters, the new Matt Damon star vehicle and the Hollywood debut by South African director Neill Blomkamp, acclaimed for his debut aliens-among-us feature "District 9." On the other, this is a political propaganda film so stark and simplistic in its depiction of the triumph of the proletariat over the capitalist bourgeoisie that even Joseph Stalin would wince. Matt Damon, working-class hero, fights off robots and evil mercenaries to bring affordable health care to the galaxy.
The year is 2054, and the rich — as a voice-over informs us — have fled an overpopulated, trashed Earth for an orbiting space station, Elysium, where they can maintain their McMansion-and-swimming-pool lifestyle far from the huddled masses. Think of it as the ultimate gated community. Refugees board ramshackle shuttles in an attempt to bring their children to a better future in Elysium, but they are mercilessly terminated by missiles and robots on the orders of defense secretary Delacourt, as played by Jodie Foster, who's way off form here, playing her character like some caricature of Condoleezza Rice crossed with the Wicked Witch of the West.
Damon plays a poor blue-collar schmuck (and former criminal) named Max who works in a factory owned by one of the off-world yuppie scum, making the very robots that will police and terrorize the poor. After he's injured in an industrial accident involving a dose of radiation that will become lethal in five days, he decides to get some payback; with the help of a local gang leader named Spider (Wagner Moura) he gets fitted out with a high-powered exoskeleton with which he can fight off the robots and force his way onto Elysium. There's also his childhood flame Frey (Alice Braga), who's a single mom with a sick kid, and only Elysium has the medical technology to save her, but rogue operative Kruger (Sharlto Copley, from "District 9") is ordered by Delacourt to take Max out.