Movie Review - Elysium

Several weeks ago, a buddy and I went to see the movie Elysium, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. There really wasn’t much playing at the time that looked any good. I had some reservations about Elysium, because of the far left-leaning politics of Damon, but, our wives were out of town, we needed to catch up, and the sci-fi theme looked interesting. Man, were we in for a surprise.

The movie is future-based and is portrayed as taking place on the earth and in a fancy space station known as Elysium. The earth has pretty much been destroyed by years of overpopulation and war. The entire planet is now like a third-world country. Elysium, on the other hand, is a beautiful, luxurious world built by the rich for the rich. Basically, the earth is where the poor live and Elysium is where the rich live. Segregation by social class at its finest.

When the movie started, my radar went up immediately as mostly Spanish is being spoken. As the story-line develops, it continues, and there does not appear to be any middle class on earth or on Elysium, either. You are either a filthy rich legal citizen of Elysium or a dirt poor resident of earth. You may already have a sense of where this is going, but it gets worse. The film ultimately turns out be a multi-million dollar Hollywood propaganda piece promoting amnesty for illegal aliens and universal healthcare. Stay with me, and I’ll explain.

The “legal citizens” of Elysium all have chips implanted under their skin that prove their citizenship and give them access to various services, including healthcare. Healthcare on Elysium is interesting, to say the least. Each legal resident has a medi-bay in their home. The medi-bays look much like a tanning bed. If you have a medical ailment, whether it be a cold, cancer, heart disease, etc., all you have to do is lay down in the medi-bay for a few minutes and it “cures” you. However, if you don’t have the little implanted chip, the medi-bay doesn’t work.

Smugglers on earth make money providing shuttle rides to the “illegals” on earth who want to try to sneak into Elysium. Most of the time, people are trying to leave earth for Elysium in order to get in one of the medi-bays to get cured of whatever. Basically, if you are a legal citizen of Elysium, you get great healthcare, a “cadillac” health plan if you will. However, if you are poor, stuck on the earth, and an “illegal,” you have very limited healthcare, if you have any at all.

One scene in the movie shows three of the shuttles leaving earth headed to Elysium. Jodie Foster’s character, the Secretary of Defense, orders them to be shot down. Two of them are, but one crash lands on Elysium. We then see “Homeland Security” robots round up the “illegals” on the crashed shuttle and immediately deport them back to earth. Sound familiar? Those evil rich people. They just want to keep the poor, illegals down. Yea …. I know – I’m overdoing it on the sarcasm again. Hang with me, though, there’s more.

Spider, one of the smugglers, devises a plot where Max, Matt Damon’s character, goes to Elysium to download computer data, so that Spider can use it to hack Elysium’s computer system. Now, what’s Spider’s plan? The plan is to change Elysium’s database and make everyone on earth legal Elysium residents. Wow – just like that … amnesty for everyone! No more illegals. Woohooo! Now all the sick or injured poor, illegals on earth can go to Elysium and get healed. Isn’t it great?

So, as I said, Elysium is nothing more than a political statement by Hollywood supporting amnesty for illegal aliens and universal health care for all. It even contains the emotional, tugging at your heartstrings moment where the daughter, Matilda, of Max’s friend, Frey, is smuggled from earth to Elysium for medical care because she has leukemia. There’s a rush against the clock to get the database hacked and Matilda to Elysium and into a medi-bay before the leukemia kills her. The message is,”who would be so heartless as to deny medical care to a sick, dying little girl.” It’s the same emotional argument the left always uses – “it’s for the children.”

Needless to say, my blood pressure was up a little by the time the movie was over. It reminded me of :

• the pro-Palestinian political statement that U2 made during one of their concerts I attended a few years ago, and 
• Cars 2, which made a point of bashing the big, bad, rich oil companies for getting rich at the expense of the environment. That movie also promoted alternative automobile fuels, such as ethanol. The fact is that ethanol damages engines and requires more of our water supply to produce than gasoline. I even remember one scene in Cars 2 where a large, older model car was made fun of by the other cars for using more gas than them.

I think most Americans would agree with me when I say that when I pay my good money to be entertained, whether it be for a movie or a concert, I do not want politics to be shoved down my throat. It doesn’t matter whether the politics lean right or left. It’s not what I’m there for. I can watch that crap at home for free. When I go to a movie, it’s because I want to get away from all the crap of regular every day life for just a little while, have some fun, and enjoy myself. It’s an escape. When the producer brings politics into it, it completely ruins the experience.

I know someone’s gonna leave a comment on this post along the lines of “you just hate immigrants.” No, I don’t. If you are an American citizen, and not a Native American, then you descended from immigrants, me included. I have no problem with immigrants or immigration. That is, legal immigrants and legal immigration. If you want to come to the U.S., come on. However, follow our laws and regulations. Do it the right way. Don’t try to slip in the back door and expect to be welcomed with open arms. Not only is it unlawful and wrong, but it’s basically trespassing. I don’t know of anywhere trespassers are warmly welcomed. Do you?

I think Elysium is off the big screen now. However, if it isn’t where you live, consider yourself warned. Don’t spend your $11 or $12 on Hollywood leftist propaganda. If that’s what you’re into, just stay home and turn on CNN or MSNBC. It will be much cheaper.

As for Hollywood, would you people please leave the politics out of movies? I like going to movies, but if this crap continues, I can always stay at home or go to a ballgame.