{"id":797304,"date":"2026-07-12T15:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/797304\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T15:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:34:13","slug":"matt-damons-most-underrated-sci-fi-movie-is-now-free-to-stream-before-the-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/797304\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Damon’s most underrated sci-fi movie is now free to stream before The Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Damon<\/a> has always had a knack for playing extraordinary leading men in movies<\/a>. His casting as the cunning, resourceful Odysseus in Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey<\/a> makes perfect sense once we consider Damon\u2019s decades-spanning filmography. Films like Good Will Hunting (1997), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and the Bourne<\/a> (2002-2016) series showcase Damon\u2019s incredible range in playing larger-than-life characters with varying moral compasses.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s 2011\u2019s Contagion<\/a>, where Damon plays Mitch Emhoff, the quintessential \u201ceveryman\u201d whose lack of specialized knowledge informs the character\u2019s anxiety-ridden arc. Damon\u2019s naturalistic portrayal of such an ordinary character seeped into Max Da Costa in Neill Blomkamp<\/a>\u2019s Elysium (2013), where he plays a former car thief out on parole who suddenly becomes the hero who must save Earth.<\/p>\n

Blomkamp\u2019s film, while perfectly serviceable, feels like a step down from District 9 (2009) and Chappie (2015), which indulge in his brilliant cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/a> style of filmmaking. Even so, Elysium is held together by committed performances from Damon and the rest of the cast, who make the most out of a movie with immense potential. Since Elysium landed on Tubi on July 1, you can now watch this dystopian sci-fi flick for free.<\/p>\n

The film opens in the year 2154, with a heavily polluted and overpopulated Earth paying the price for environmental destruction. While most humans on Earth live in poverty, the ultra-wealthy reside in a high-tech orbital space station called Elysium. The most enviable aspect of Elysium has nothing to do with a luxurious lifestyle \u2014 instead, its coveted nature lies in the fact that the space station\u2019s Med-Bays can heal any disease or health condition. A hacker named Spider (Wagner Moura) fights this unjust system by smuggling people into Elysium, but Defense Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) doesn\u2019t take to this kindly.<\/p>\n

\"Jodie
\n Image:\u00a0Sony Pictures Releasing<\/p>\n

Damon\u2019s Max is not a rebel like Spider. Instead, he\u2019s an ex-thief who has been wronged by the system after being accidentally exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. Although his employers, Armadyne Corp, grant him medication to help suppress side effects, he has five days left to live. While Max\u2019s previous crimes were necessitated by survival, this extreme life-or-death situation completely radicalizes him.<\/p>\n

After healthcare no longer feels like a right, but a luxury, Max is forced to abandon his efforts to put his head down and rehabilitate. The moving transformation unfolds when Max\u2019s motive to survive gradually shifts to a desire to dismantle Elysium so that others like him can have access to basic healthcare. However, Max isn\u2019t trying to be a hero. His desperate circumstances put him on a path filled with impossible choices and particularly vicious enemies.<\/p>\n

\"Sharlto
\n Image:\u00a0Sony Pictures Releasing<\/p>\n

Elysium mounts a scathing commentary about class division while passionately championing the right to a dignified life. This is hardly a revolutionary theme for an early 2000s sci-fi movie, especially as Blomkamp\u2019s film seems satisfied with a rudimentary, surface-level exploration (which feels like squandered potential, given what we know the director is capable of). Despite this major flaw, Elysium is still pretty entertaining, thanks to Damon\u2019s physically demanding performance as Max, who later dons a sturdy exoskeleton to boost his declining health. There\u2019s also a vulnerability to this character that most heroes of this mold don\u2019t exude, channeled via Damon\u2019s personable presence as a man who spends his final days making a difference in the world rather than wallowing.<\/p>\n

It is interesting to note that Damon would go on to star as the deceitful Dr. Mann in Nolan\u2019s Interstellar <\/a>(2014), a year after Elysium. Mann is no everyman, but he hides his troubling motivations in plain sight without rousing suspicion until his true colors are revealed. 2023 would see Damon\u2019s turn as General Leslie Groves in Oppenheimer<\/a>, where he embodied a shrewd, no-nonsense demeanor to guide the lofty ambitions of Cillian Murphy\u2019s titular character. While we shall witness Damon\u2019s turn as Odysseus on July 17 (early critical impressions of The Odyssey are calling it<\/a> his \u201ccareer-best\u201d performance), the character is a far cry from someone as grounded as Max Da Costa. After all, Odysseus\u2019 supreme cunning and hubris have earned him the title of the Greek hero who decisively turned the tides of the Trojan War in Homer’s Iliad.<\/p>\n

Close\"MattImage:\u00a0Sony Pictures Releasing\"MattImage: Sony Pictures Releasing\"elysium-movie-poster-2013.jpg\"elysium-movie-poster-2013.jpg<\/p>\n

Elysium might feel like a middling sci-fi affair, but it is an adventure that\u2019s well worth your time due to Damon\u2019s seasoned presence (alongside Foster and the wonderful Sharlto Copley, who plays Agent M. Kruger). It is a film that makes reasonably good use of its kinetic action sequences to impart a heavy-handed lesson about wealth inequity and the importance of raging against a system designed to keep us complacent.<\/p>\n

Elysium may not rank among Damon’s greatest films, but it remains one of the clearest examples of what makes him such an enduring leading man: His ability to make extraordinary circumstances feel deeply human, and his capacity to make even a regular guy feel more than a bit heroic.<\/p>\n

Elysium is streaming for free on Tubi. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Damon has always had a knack for playing extraordinary leading men in movies. His casting as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-797304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}