ELYSIUM

Elysium is an action/sci-fi movie starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. Actually, it could also be called a political thriller since the political "message" of this film is anything BUT subtle. The film takes place in the not-so-distant future where the wealthy--i.e. the 1%--live in luxury in a space station called Elysium while the rest of the population--i.e. the 99%--live in abject poverty and squalor on a ruined Earth. On top of that, the "citizens" of Elysium have access to health care that can cure practically any disease and can even reverse the aging process. (A not-so-subtle nod to so-called Obamacare, perhaps?) Jodie Foster plays a rather ruthless Defense Secretary on Elysium named Delacourt who seemingly has no empathy or compassion whatsoever. She even orders a group of ships carrying "illegal" immigrants shot down before they can reach Elysium. (A not-so-subtle nod to Republicans, perhaps?) Anyway, Matt Damon plays Max, a former car thief on parole who works at the plant assembling robots that act as the police who are rather ruthless. Anyway, one day while on the job, Max is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation and is given five days to live. He convinces a local criminal named Spider to help him get to Elysium to help cure him in exchange for Max's help in getting some information that's embedded in the brain of a big-time CEO who also happened to be Max's former boss who is taking this information to Delacourt so she can overthrow the President whom she regards as weak so she can take over Elysium. Because of his weakened condition, Spider equips Max with an exoskeleton that's infused with his body. After his operation, Max goes with some of Spider's men to retrieve the information from said CEO. During the ensuing battle with the CEO's robotic bodyguards and a group of "sleeper" agents working for Delacourt led by a hardcore criminal named Kruger after shooting down his ship, the CEO is mortally wounded, though Max and Spider's men are able to retrieve the information and embed it in Max's brain. A wounded Max barely escapes and seeks the assistance of a former girlfriend of his who is also a nurse. She patches him up the best she can and he tells her what's happened to him and his plan to go to Elysium so he can be cured. She begs him to take her ailing daughter with him, but he refuses saying that it wouldn't be safe. After Max leaves, Kruger and his men kidnaps the nurse and her daughter while Max goes to Spider who tells him that the info he uploaded into his brain is a way to reboot Elysium and therefore allow the entire population of Earth to become "citizens" of Elysium and thus have access to their health care. (Again, a nod to Obamacare?) Max goes and tracks down Kruger to make a deal with him to take him to Elysium unaware that he's kidnapped the nurse and her daughter. While en route to Elysium, Kruger and his men try to get "fresh" with his ex-girlfriend and a fight ensues causing their ship to crash on Elysium. Max along with the nurse and her daughter are arrested by Delacourt. While Delacourt is attempting to extract the information from Max's brain even though the process would kill him, Kruger's men reconstruct Kruger's face that was all but blown off during the explosion on their ship. After he's revived, Kruger seeks out to retrieve the information from Max's head for himself so he can take over Elysium after--spoiler alert!--he kills Delacourt with a shard of glass to her throat. Max manages to escape before Delacourt's doctors can upload the info from his brain. After he gets outfitted with an exoskeleton of his own that's more powerful than Max's, they both do battle and . . . well, I won't tell you how it ends, although you can probably pretty much figure that out for yourself. I must say, Matt Damon seems like an unlikely action hero, although he proved his action film chops with his popular Bourne movies. Elysium is actually not a bad action/sci-fi flick. I just wished they focused more on the action and less on the film's rather heavy-handed and/or ham-fisted political "message" and whatnot. Even the film's director Neill Blomkamp--who also directed the popular sci-fi film District 9 that seemed to be less heavy-handed (though that may have been because that film was about aliens who get stranded on Earth and are treated like . . . well, you know!)--himself copped to this when he reportedly stated of the movie's overall theme at the time: "Everybody wants to ask me lately about my predictions for the future . . . This isn't science fiction. This is today. This is now." It doesn't get MORE heavy-handed than THAT, does it?