Spoiler Alert: Elysium

For writer and director Neill Blomkamp, Elysium is round two of sci-fi feature as social allegory, following in the footsteps of 2009's District 9.  Whereas District 9 paralleled the history of apartheid in South Africa, Elysium deals with issues of illegal immigration and social class, centered on everyone's favorite pre-apocalyptic wasteland, Los Angeles.

It's a pure joy to see L.A. extrapolated to a vibrant, populous, spray-painted pile of rubble in the year 2154, where even gringos like Matt Damon hablan español.  This proletariat L.A., where ex-con Damon earns minimum wage building robot cops for "the man," lies in stark contrast to the wheeling space station Elysium, where all the wealthy white people have gone to live lives of privilege and comfort.  On Elysium, if you break your leg or get your face blown off by a grenade, you have only to lie in a Med-Pod for a few seconds to be totally healed.  Then you can take your wine and picnic basket to a well-manicured lawn for lunch.

Wanting better healthcare, the denigrated residents of L.A. attempt to cross the "border" into Elysium illegally, and get blown out of space for their efforts.  One suspects Elysium would have less of a security problem if it weren't parked in geosynchronous orbit directly above Los Angeles, taunting our heroes below.  Why hang your elitist space station like forbidden fruit over the heads of the downtrodden?

Unfortunately, all the allegory in the world can't prevent this film from settling its differences with fisticuffs.  Sharlto Copley, as the bad guy Kruger, portrays one of the more nuanced and credible villains in recent memory, while Jodie Foster, exuding white-collar cruelty, delivers her lines on stilts.  But ultimately, it's our star Matt Damon who brings about equality for all, sacrificing himself, Christ-like, for the welfare of the Hispanic peoples.   Why this requires an attractive white man is hard to say.  How can this film refute white exceptionalism while depending on it for a denouement?  In the world of Elysium, where do all the producers and movie stars live? And where would our friend Neill Blomkamp find himself?

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Excellent point about Matt Damon the white man savior. I was so taken with all the silliness in the script, I didn't see that aspect.

I'm pretty sure that Jodie Foster used at least 3 different accents during the course of the movie. Did not find her convincing at all.

I only understood about every 3rd word that Kruger said.

I went to see the movie hoping that it might be better than I anticipated and perhaps actually engage in the elite versus commoner debate. It wasn't and it didn't.

Wanting better healthcare, the denigrated residents of L.A. attempt to cross the “border” into Elysium illegally, and get blown to high hell for their effort...One suspects Elysium would have less of a security problem if it weren’t parked in geosynchronous orbit directly above Los Angeles, taunting our heroes below

They attempt to cross the border by building rockets?

Alex, they have ready-made shuttles they have presumably stolen. Jodie Foster pages Kruger, who shoots them down.

Wesley - That didn't make any sense to me. One of the subplots is Jodie Foster offering big defense contracts to the owner of the manufacturing plant. If they've got missiles and an air force and army and all that, why didn't she just have the military shoot them down? Why activate some rogue agent to do it?

Jodie Foster's character (Delacourt) took this action while still Secretary of Defense under President Patel. The official policy toward illegals was to deport them, not kill them. Patel's disapproval of Delacourt's use of Kruger and his missiles is what inspires her attempted coup, and her promise to secure future defense contracts for Armadyne in exchange for their collusion.

Delacourt has a pathological aversion to the commoners, whether it's racially motivated is not clear. She would sooner kill the illegals than have them touch Elysium, just as she would rather bleed to death than be touched by the Hispanic nurse Frey.

Pity - I quite liked the idea of a sort of North Korean/favela-chic/Gazan terrorist backyard rocket industry vs. vaguely Apple-like McWorld as a plot.