Imagine a liberal screenwriter has a nightmare and put it on film

Rating: 6/10 (19 December 2016)

Whenever a film has obvious political overtones, the plot suffers because the writers and actors develop a kind of emotional and creative rigor mortis. Spoiler alert: I must summarize the plot to explain my position. The draft written up is this: Evil white male elites are so separated from humanity, they must live in a space station. Everyone there is white and evil except for an Indian president. The hero, Matt Damon though, is white (of course) because Hollywood leftists, also white, don't want to view themselves as entirely bad and this film won't sell to ignorant action movie audiences if the hero isn't white. This is probably what was said over the initial screenplay writing table.
Jodie Foster needs to be believable as an evil white woman security director but she can't humanize the role (since she has no empathy with it) so it falls flat. Bad acting. She should have taken lessons from Sir Anthony Hopkins who humanized Hannibal. Other apartheid villains are also stereotypical due to limited emotional ability for the actors or writers to see past their ideological blinders. The droids seemed to have more emotion than the bad guys who just couldn't read their horrible lines (as they saw them.) Compare and contrast to Archie Bunker who was portrayed by a leftist. Carol O'Conner humanized a working class bigot into a national icon.
It's hilarious that the film is so PC, that the evil guys have to stop "undocumented" flights from entering their airspace. Why not say "unauthorized?" They want to make the point: The evil future world is run by Republicans who use leftist terminology!
Others have pointed out the numerous plot holes and logical inconsistencies that just don't work. Like a computer program determining whose "citizens" (sort of Logan's Run there) and also, storing stuff in people's brains? Ever hear of Johnny Mnemonic?
(Side observations: The cybernetic implants for Damon and others went over their clothes including bolted in. How do these guys change their underwear? Do they have to painfully bolt out of these outfits?)
The actors and writers didn't consider that this future revealed the nihilism of their own politics: After a world becomes overpopulated and the USA's borders are wide open, instead of Swedish paradise for all, the white elite would just go up into space (with an Indian president, of course) and continue to oppress everyone. There is no end to white privilege. Ever. How long would Elysium last as a Malibu paradise after a million shuttles land and make it into East L.A.? Is Jodie Foster opening up HER mansion doors to the great unwashed? (Funny google: I looked it up and she does have an actual mansion and values her "privacy". I guess she'll probably reserve her slot on Elysium in advance!)
For that reason, and that reason alone, I give this 6 stars. Savor the limousine liberal hypocrisy like a fine wine.