Elysium
A 22nd-century prole fights for social equality.
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
(R)
***
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“At last, a good big film,” said Anthony Lane in The New Yorker. Set in a future when Earth is a dusty ruin and the rich live in comfort in a hovering space station, this science-fiction thriller feels “angry and alive” compared with other summer action extravaganzas because its director immerses the audience in a plausible alternative world and seems to truly care about his hero’s mission. Matt Damon plays a factory worker who has just days to live when he takes on a kidnapping mission, and he “comes off credibly as a ticking time bomb,” said Todd McCarthy in The Hollywood Reporter. But once this would-be hero is surgically melded with a machine-like exoskeleton, he loses much of his human appeal. Soon the film devolves into a series of standard gun battles and explosions, ending in “mawkish sentimentality.” You can fault the movie for turning conventional, but “as entertainment it rarely falters,” said Scott Foundas in Variety. Young director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) proves once again to be “a superb storyteller” with “a master’s sense of pacing” and “an architect’s eye” for detail.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Trump judge pick told DOJ to defy courts, lawyer says
Speed Read Emil Bove, a top Justice Department official nominated by Trump for a lifetime seat, stands accused of encouraging government lawyers to mislead the courts and defy judicial orders
-
Mamdani upsets Cuomo in NYC mayoral primary
Speed Read Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani beat out Andrew Cuomo in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary
-
Iran nukes program set back months, early intel suggests
Speed Read A Pentagon assessment says US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites only set the program back by months, not years. This contradicts President Donald Trump's claim.