A rather ham-fisted metaphore for our modern-day alien emigration problems, from the idealized point of view of the illegal aliens and completely lacking in any other perspective. 150 years in the future, Elysium is a colony in space where only the rich live, while the rest of the population- who happen to all speak spanish- live down on earth. Principally, the Los Angeles area- which just happens to look like the worst parts of mexico, no explanation given as to why a century of overpopulation and pollution would actually make it look like a bombed-out Beruit-like war zone. If the metaphore isn't clear enough, when on Elysium they actually utter the phrase "Call Homeland Security". 150 years in the future, not even on Earth, and their security force is still called Homeland Security? well, don't worry, there's worse.

I guess in an effort to simulate the United States' easily-crossed borders, that big space colony up there has an open sky. Big wheel station, but while the "ground" is along the outer inner side, their "sky on the inner side is open to space. Yes, all a craft has to do is come straight in for a landing. No airlock needed. And they wonder what makes it so easy for stray shuttles to try and land. The main reason for having a ROOF in SPACE would be to keep the air in, never mind the micro-meteorites that would have killed everybosdy inside. Oh, and that hard solar radiation as well. But wait, you say, maybe they have a force-field. Well, aside from the fact that if they ever lose power then everyone underneath that former force field is instantly dead, if there WAs one then THAT would stop the shuttles as well, as any field straong enough to keep out the micrometeorites would give some landing problems as well.

Now let's analyze that metaphore a bit more. Here, the rich up there (the U.S.) have all this magic tech that they are unwilling to share even though they have the resources to spare. when in the end the sharing finally begins the people below come in cheering. Now for the reality. The U.S. DOES try and share; food, medical supplies, and the occasional fight against tyrrany. The response? Cheering? No. Food and meical supplies get hijacked by local authorites before they reach the people, and every time we try to come in and helop we get shot at. As far as the L.A. in this movie equates to Mexico thing, the movie seems to imply that we should annex Mexico with no concern for the fact that we have interna problems of our own. Like I said, no balance to the heavy-handed preaching.

Okay, back to the movie. While it had some passable action, and I sorta liked the ending, there is just too much in the way of inaccuracies in plot logic, scientific basics (this is SCIENCE fiction, after all), and common sense to keep me in the movie, and the rather obvious hammer-over-the-head preaching got to the point of annoyance. Some good parts, yes, but i say wait until you can rent it.