The United States has quite a spotty history in the realm of race relations, with our proud white folk making quite the habit out of enslaving virtually anyone tanner than John Turturro. However, throughout the twentieth century, America underwent the greatest exercise in racial assimilation ever witnessed, and this assimilation has directly tracked the rise of a dominant American culture that is globally dispersed like none other in human history. There’s a reason that 99% of blockbuster movies are American/mostly American-made. It’s a nation of people from crazily different backgrounds coming together to create even crazier new ideas, whether it be jazz, an iPad, or DuelingChaps.com. Conversely, the former cultural/intellectual center of the universe, Europe, has been rendered irrelevant by centuries of in-breeding. There ain’t no one else in Bulgaria besides Bulgarians. And it won’t be getting better anytime soon for the Euro-trash either, as they’ve built up social welfare states (now collapsing) that are implicitly only for whites. They don’t tolerate immigration (usually composed of poor non-whites) and there’s no way blonde Swedes are gonna give up a vacation day to pay for a pregnant black woman’s maternal suite.

South Africa, with District 9 and Elysium writer/director Neill Blomkamp as its spearhead, is now poised to become a global cultural superpower, at least at some point this century. They have all the ingredients to mimic the rise of Americanism in the twentieth century. A half millenia of limited warfare between European whites, native blacks, and every other race under the sun hopefully reached its cathartic end with the abolition of apartheid in the 1990’s. As long as they can just keep it together (iffy), the energy produced by racial tensions, formerly channeled into hatred and murder, could instead manifest into a wildly creative and original society. It’s how it happened in America… centuries of slavery and institutional oppression of non-honkies, followed by wild cultural shifts in the 1960’s that removed political barriers to equality, culminating with an insanely progressive culture that now produces world’s best and brightest white rappers. We should all get onboard the South African cultural bandwagon because, as you’ll witness in Elysium, they may have the English-speaking world’s coolest accent, beating out Irish, London cockney, and Southern belle with ease.

Elysium succeeds where many sci-fi epics, or epics in general, fail. It gives you a sense of massive scale and scope, both in story and setting, but does it with all of the fat appropriately trimmed. It has all of the familiar ingredients: sweeping vista shots, a triumphant musical score, and outlandish characters; but every one of these elements is employed at the right place, right time, and with purpose. Somehow, Elysium clocks in at under two hours; there’s a ton of stuff packed into that short timeframe, and it seems that absolutely nothing was left out. I would have gladly paid more than the ten dollar entry fee, but my wife would be furious if I exceeded my entertainment budget and shower time allotment in the same week, the latter of which was unavoidable given that I’ve been conducting interviews to fill my boss’ vacant receptionist position since Monday morning.

Elysium demands your engagement; as much as any sci-fi movie ever made, it feels like the middle entry in a trilogy, including ones that actually are #2 out of 3. It’s a decidedly one-off affair, but the characters are so convincing and of the world they inhabit that you’ll immediately grasp them intellectually, freeing your mind to float back and forth in time to wonder how things ended up like this and where they are going.

The basics are pretty basic; in the twenty-first century, Earth’s environment and civilization crumbled, prompting the wealthy to flee to an exorbitant, gargantuan space station, Elysium, which looks down upon the unfortunate Earth-dwellers with mocking pity. Now, in the twenty-second century, things on Earth are the standard dystopian fare. The entirety of the built environment is a Rio favela times ten; there’s scores and scores of poor people running around in dirt all day, just being poor. The over-the-top nature of how bad things are on Earth is a weaker point in the film; there’s just no way people could tolerate living the way it’s portrayed without descending into all-out anarchy, which doesn’t occur. On Elysium, it’s nothing but tropical mansions lining perfectly manicured parks, inhabited by immortal citizens in perfect health and beauty.

The most fascinating point of Elysium is the mannerisms of the eponymous space station’s residents. While it’s obviously all-out dystopia on Earth, there appears to have formed an equally omnipresent dystopia on Elysium, buried just under the glossy, luxurious surface. On Earth, the entirety of one’s waking hours is dedicated to survival, thus there is no time for cultural pursuits. However, it’s the same situation on Elysium. Though their survival is guaranteed, the citizens don’t appear to do anything on a day to day basis, other than revel in their wealthy surroundings. This point is not directly addressed, but the Elysians appear to have lost a sense of higher purpose. A higher purpose is only sought after when one possesses existential anxiety; the Elysians have no such anxiety, since eternal comfort is ostensibly guaranteed.

There is evidence that Blomkamp was going for at least something resembling the bullshyte you just read. The two main Elysian characters, portrayed by Jodie Foster and William Fichtner, are completely new constructs. They don’t exist in the 2013 world, or in any other movie. To the point of the non-existent culture, their characters, while presumably highly intelligent and thus able to command positions of immense power, are completely lacking refinement when communicating with other human beings. It’s not a lack of etiquette, but something different. It’s as if the concept of society doesn’t exist to them. They have nothing but their most base instincts guiding their every decision, as there is no true Elysian culture on which their minds could have fed upon to help form subtler emotions and ideas. If Elysium was a proper civilization, then these characters would possess a more thoughtful and complex problem-solving approach. Thus, both Earth and Elysium have effectively slid down opposite sides of the same full circle, arriving back at a primitive state, with one group hopelessly impoverished and the other hopelessly wealthy.

Elysium may be the most effective work of Matt Damon’s career. You’ll not only forget that it’s him, but you’ll forget that you’re watching a movie star period, as he underplays his part to perfection. The true star is the universe being presented to us; Damon never attempts to siphon off the limelight from Blomkamp’s vision. On paper, Damon plays an archetypal action-adventure protagonist, Max, an anonymous Earth-dweller who is presented with an opportunity to infiltrate Elysium and restore a more equitable balance of wealth among the human race. It’s a mission that he embarks upon with great reluctance, though he really has no choice in the matter. However, it’s not Die Hard, where every action and thought of every character revolves around the hero. There are plenty of compelling characters throughout Elysium, and they are given equal billing in terms of their significance to the story, with each implicitly possessing their own intriguing past.

Unfortunately, Elysium fails where District 9 wildly succeeded, that is, in its social commentary. While D9 was about as effective an exposé on apartheid as any non-fiction work, Elysium is wrought with juvenile complaints about various injustices in the world, namely wealth inequality in general, but particularly access to healthcare. It never actually delves into these issues at all; the main thrust is simply that the rich have a bunch of nice stuff up there, and we’re gonna go get some. It’s therefore best to simply ignore these parts of the story when they’re getting shoved in your face, else it could detract from an otherwise amazing experience. However, these social issues are interwoven into a questionable ending, so it’ll leave you with a very strong feeling that this could have been a much better movie had the preachy parts simply been removed.

District 9 was a spectacular debut for Neill Blomkamp, and Elysium is an equally spectacular mega-budget debut. However, it doesn’t close the deal. His next film must marry the biting social commentary of D9 with the epic scope of Elysium. At that point, we can put him on the all-time sci-fi Mount Rushmore, alongside George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Randy Quaid.