2) He can play total super crazy badasses
Just the image of that Elysium poster, with Damon strapped in, ready to take on a planet full of rich and presumably heavily armed douchebags, is stirring, generating the kind of rah-rah feeling only the “one man” genre can inspire. He’s established himself at this point as a perfectly convincing and capable badass in movies. It mostly began with The Bourne Identity, where he was able to draw us in to his world of conspiracy and assassinations, and the remaining trilogy work solidified this as part of his persona.
But it should be noted that his roles prior to Bourne had quite a lot of intensity to them as well. His breakthrough Good Will Hunting performance showed him as a scrappy Boston boy, intellectually as well as physically aggressive.
Subsequent characters like Loki in Dogma showed a similar intensity, as a powerless and frustrated guy on the brink of violent outburst in any given moment. It’s this quality that makes his work in movies like Invictus and Green Zone pop. His exuding confidence leaves us little room to doubt what he’s capable of, and his actions onscreen fulfill these expectations. Elysium looks to further advance this dimension to Damon’s multi-faceted acting persona..
