In sci-fi cinema shorthand terms, the German thriller “Paradise” is “Logan’s Run” with a whiff of “Soylent Green is PEOPLE!”

“Youth” is even more of a commodity than it is today is this dystopian future. And the rich are as villainous as ever, “buying” years of the less fortunate’s lifespan to give them back that ’80s Madonna glow. It’s the new version of “She’s had some work done.”

Set in a “climate change was solved” world, “Paradise” is a future where Aeon Corp. can celebrate the celebrated, transferring years of life in exchange for enough money to make your present day existence a bit or a lot more comfortable.

Immigrants from the Middle East and Africa struggling to get visas can be paid — if they’re a “compatible” “donor” — enough so that one person can sell a few years or a lot and made an entire family’s life better.

“Your time. Your chance. Your choice.”

That’s the pitch that Aeon’s “Donor Manager of the Year,” Max (Kostja Ullmann) makes to clients. His company heralds its role in adding decades of youthful life to “the top 10,000,” the world’s greatest scientists and creators.

Not everybody’s buying into that “donor” euphemism for a straight-up sale of a chunk of your life for cash to somebody with a lot of money. And it’s not just street protestors who complain that “the rich get younger and younger.”

But Max wouldn’t be the salesman of the year without having a comeback — “The poor get better and better standards of living,” he says, with a smile (in German with subtitles, or dubbed).

He worships his company’s visionary founder (Iris Berben) and makes plans to impregnate his doctor/wife (Marlene Tanczik) so that they can have full lives in their luxury apartment. But a housefire, an insurance company that won’t pay for their “negligence” and suddenly Max and Elena find out what living on the edge is all about.

And about that mortgage. It turns out her share of the downpayment was 40 years of her life.

Surely the “Donor Manager of the Year” can fix this. Surely his boss, the imperious Sophia, will hear him out. I mean, the extremely rich are as compassionate as the rest of us, right? Look at Elon!

It takes no time at all for law enforcement to log them as flight risks, arrest Elena and through “enforced donation,” take away 38 years. No babies, no blush of youth. Nothing Elena (now played by Corinna Kirchhoff) and Max can do.

But with resisters led by the mysterious Lillith (Lisa Loven Kongsli) carrying out murderous attacks on Aeon and its beneficiaries, and with others seeing underground opportunities to undo what Big Time “Donation” is up to, maybe there’s hope.

All it’ll take is finding the right “donor,” “kidnapping her (Lisa-Marie Koroll) and sneaking that woman out of Germany for an illicit operation, and maybe Elena will get her years back.

The performances here are OK, in a flat, unemotional sort of way. This story has pathos built in and three directors couldn’t wring that out of the script or the performances.

The production design is impressively futuristic and yet dystopian (refugee resettlement centers will still look like ghettos).

The three directors in charge of this try to get their picture on the move, “Logan’s Run” fashion, with the paid bodyguards of the kidnapped woman’s family led by a ruthless, young and “chronologically 64” so very experienced hunter (Lorna Ishema) on their trail.

But this isn’t an on-the-run thriller. It’s more about the ethnics of this magical “procedure,” the amorality of those behind it and the people they’re preying upon. And “ethics” implies “discussions. Lots of discussions.

Can Max and older Elena reconcile themselves to do what they had done to them?

That makes for a somewhat dull and meandering build-up to an action finale that’s slightly under-cut by the competing agendas in play.

Still, as dytopias go, this one isn’t a complete bust. “Paradise” serves up food for thought in a just-provocative-enough satire of the growing gap between the coddled and well-cared-for rich and everybody they’re screwing over.

If you don’t think the “one percent” is filled with tycoons willing to shorten others’ lives just to line their coal baron/Big Plastic/Big Insurance pockets a little more, you haven’t been paying attention.

Rating: TV-MA, violence and sex

Cast: Corinna Kirchhoff, Kostja Ullmann, Marlene Tanczik, Iris Berben, Lisa-Marie Koroll
Lorna Ishema and Lisa Loven Kongsli.

Credits: Directed by Boris Kunz, Tomas Jonsgården and Indre Juskute, scripted by Simon Amberger, Peter Kocyla and Boris Kunz. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:58