Elysium (2013)

Elysium explores the same old socio-metaphorical trope of the rich living above and the poor living below that has been traipsed throughout the history of science fiction in works ranging from H.G. Wells The Time Machine, and Fritz Lang's Metropolis to that one episode of the original Star Trek.  The exact meaning of the films name, which  in context refers to an 22nd century Earth orbiting space station which houses this planets refugee wealthy, I had to look up, according to Wikipedia:

Elysium or the Elysian Fields (Ancient Greek: Ἠλύσιον πεδίον, Ēlýsion pedíon) is a conception of the afterlife that evolved over time and was maintained by certain Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. Initially separate from the realm of Hades, admission was initially reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes. Later, it expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]}

So in short, and drawing a pronounced though not explicitly stated reference to contemporary economic discourse, the 1% enjoy a life of idealic pleasure calling the shots for the rest of humanity up on Elysium, while the other 99% toil out a meek subsistence on the overpopulated, polluted Hades that is the Earth circa 2154. Our hero is Max Da Costa (played as an adult by Matt Damon), an orphan raised by a group of Catholic sisters in a third world ghetto of Los Angelis, who goes on to have a criminal career as a thief and spend some time in prison, before deciding to go straight and landing a job at a factory that produces law enforcement robots.

In the course of the film Damon is accidently exposed to a lethal level or radiation at work and given some very effective pain suppressing medication and five days to live. He then decides to take up the offer of some old criminal associates to work with them on the planed kidnapping of a visiting executive from Elysium, who happens to be Max's old boss at that the plant (William Fichtner). The crooks intend to steal some valuable information that has been downloaded into Fichtner's brain, and in exchange promise to smuggle Max onto Elysium where there advanced medical technology, which they cynically withhold from the poor people of Earth, could actually cure him.

Thrown in for complication are Max's childhood sweetheart Frey (Alice Braga) whose Leukemia stricken young daughter could certainly use some of that Elysiuon healing technology, and the space stations French Secretary of Defense Jessica Delacourt (Jodie Foster) who is plotting a cue against Elysiums pseudo-liberal (but really doesn't care about people much) President Petal (Faran Tahir),  and oh Sharlto Copley as a crazy mean South African sleeper agent Delacourt assigns to retrieve Fichtner's super-secret brain information from Damon. A good, serviceable action movie, it doesn't ask too much of you, and delivers about what you'd expect.

One of the things that surprised me about the film, though I didn't really fully realize it until after seeing the film and doing some reading about it online, is that the film can be considered a critique of open boarders and cultural 'invasion'
from the south. The LA of the film is in essence a Latin American slum, and Damon one of a very few white characters you see there. The wealthy are concerned about preserving there way of life, and by extension culture, so the Caucasian and Asian characters have built themselves a sort of gated community in space, complete with spacious villas under a sort of Dysoinion bio-sphere. So liberals and conservatives both have cultural critiques they can potentially applaud in this film, though I wonder how intentional the later is. ***