“Elysium” the luxurious living environment created in Space for the very rich and famous. There is no entry to this eco-system for the rest of the people on Earth who are considered to be poor. It is controlled by a President, Patel and a power hungry Defense Secretary, Jessica. This eco-system has a clean environment devoid of any diseases and the capability to cure any kind of human disorder within seconds in a specialized medical bed call ‘Med Bay’ accessible only for the citizens of Elysium - the main reason why all the people on the devastated earth want an access to Elysium. Jessica prevents illegal entries into Elysium through her dangerous ally on Earth, Kruger.
Max de Costa, who works in a company called Armadyne, headed and owned by John Carlyle, which supplies arms and critical software to Elysium, once, accidentally gets exposed to radiation and is sacked, for he shall die in 5 days. Max wants to go to Elysium and get treated since he wants to live with his childhood girl friend Frey, but will be denied access. He approaches his old friend and arms smuggler Spider, who agrees to send Max to Elysium, provided, he gets the valuable software that controls the entire Elysium and Armadyne embedded in a chip stored in the brain of John Carlyle. Max agrees for the trade off, without knowing the underlying danger. At the same time, Jessica enters into a secret business deal with John, to create a software that could make her, the President of Elysium. John creates the same and stores it in his chip with an encryption that can be copied only to a similar chip but kills the person to whom it is downloaded in, for a reboot. Spider installs a similar chip into Max’s brain and downloads the software into Max’s, while John dies in the process. Knowing this, Jessica entrusts Kruger, to bring Max to Elysium and take control of the software, that could officially make her the President. Kruger, along with Max, Frey and her leukemia affected daughter, land in Elysium. Kruger suddenly turns against Jessica and kills her for an old time revenge and in the process tries to take control of Elysium, having coming to know of the deadly secret in Max’s brain.
Ultimately, Max overpowers Kruger physically, and allows Spider to reboot the entire software of Elysium, that grants its citizenship and access to Med Bay, to the entire population on Earth, sacrificing himself to the good cause. The movie comes to an emotional end when Max dies after the re-boot but saves the entire world.
A movie that creates a kind of fear and doubts who watches it, as to what the future has in store for them, if they do not have enough money to get access to the technology that can give them a decent living. Who said money cannot buy anything? At least, it might be required to keep our children alive.
An excellent story, production and direction by Neill Blomkamp with a great cinematography, visual treat of possible futuristic machines, great sets, supplemented with star performance by Matt Damon (Max), Alice Braga (Frey), Sherlto Copley (Kruger) and sexy Jodie Foster (Jessica). My rating – 4/5.