Tom Cruise is one of those actors that I don't actively like, but I don't dislike him either. I would never go out of my way to watch a Tom Cruise film, but if I think it looks good, I wouldn't actively avoid it. I saw the trailer for Oblivion a few months back and was not only intrigued, I actually thought it looked really good. And I will admit that I was looking forward to it's impending release.
The film is set in the not so distant future; following a battle for earth's resources the planet was all but destroyed, but somehow, the human race survived. A relocation mission was put in place for the earth's inhabitants to be moved to a colony on Titan. And now only two people remain, a team who maintain the drones - robots who oversee the removal of the water supply, which is earth's contribution to Titan. In two weeks Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) will be moving to Titan too, the only potential problem with this plan is that Jack is a little too curious about what happened to the earth, in order to just do his job. He starts dreaming about a past life he doesn't think he lived, and when the girl from his dreams literally drops out of the sky, he can't just put it all down to coincidence. But as he digs deeper for the truth, will he like what he discovers?
Oblivion is a curious little creature of a movie. The first half is sort of like the human version of WALL·E, with Jack and Victoria the only inhabitants on an abandoned earth. Jack going around fixing the drones and collecting 'human' artifacts such as books and plants. The second half is where I got a little lost because unlike WALL·E, Oblivion takes a turn for the complicated. In the second half of the movie we meet a band of rebels lead by Morgan Freeman's Beech. *Spoiler Alert* Freeman's character explains that Jack has been mislead by his employers and that the alien war was not won by the humans after all. He tells Jack that it is the aliens now claiming all of the earth's water, not the colony on Titan as there is no colony on Titan. You still with me? He sends Jack off to the 'radiation zone' which he's not allowed in because it's harmful. When he gets there he discovers no radiation, but instead discovers a clone of himself. Confused? You will be!
Basically the aliens took over earth and are harvesting the water for their own use. They need people on the ground to oversee things, so they cloned Jack and Victoria and now each section of the planet has it's own Jack and Victoria, who all think they're the only Jack and Victoria and who all believe they're going to Titan in two weeks time. But they're not because they're all clones and there is no-one on Titan! It's all a lie. So Jack and Beech devise a plot to destroy the mothership of the aliens once and for all, allowing some semblance of life to be restored to earth. *End Spoiler Alert* Phew. Hope you kept up with all that!
I thought Oblivion looked beautiful; the way it showed different parts of New York in various states of disrepair was just stunning. Having stood at the top of The Empire State Building it was weird to see it buried almost up the observation deck but it worked perfectly, taking that iconic imagery and turning it on it's head. All of this has been captured wonderfully by cinematographer Claudio Miranda who also showcased his unique vision in Life of Pi and Tron Legacy. I could honestly wax lyrical about how gorgeous it looked all day long. But a pretty movie does not make a good movie.
Oblivion had such great potential but I felt it squandered that by under utilizing the supporting cast and trying to cram too much into the running time. Don't get me wrong, Tom Cruise can carry a movie, we know this. So why make him constantly have to prove that fact? When you've got a supporting actor like Morgan Freeman, use him for heavens sake! It's just maddening. And the last 30 minutes just felt like they were trying to throw in as many brain bending story arcs as they could think of. It just got a little too much for me and I ended up walking out of the cinema with more questions than I went in with.
I think if I watched it again, now fully understanding it (or at least I think I understand it now), I think I'd like it better. But as it stands I have to do the review off the one time I saw it. That leaves Oblivion with a not too shabby 7 out of 10.
Viewing Date - 14th April 2013
UK Release Date - 10th April 2013
Cast Overview:
Tom Cruise ~ Jack
Andrea Riseborough ~ Victoria
Olga Kurylenko ~ Julia
Morgan Freeman ~ Beech
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau ~ Sykes
Melissa Leo ~ Sally
Director ~ Joseph Kosinski
Writer(s) ~ Joseph Kosinski (Original Story and Graphic Novel), Karl Gajdusek (Screenplay) and Michael DeBruyn (Screenplay)
Since Jerry Maguire I have become a bit of a Tom Cruise fan and I have liked more of his films than I've disliked and this was no exception.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I liked about this film is that while Lee and I sat through endless trailers of entire cities being destroyed a la Transformers/avengers style I got bored of it and so I lost interest in "MAN OF STEEL", "PACIFIC RIM" and whatever the other one was.
In "OBLIVION" we didn't have that, we had a different kind of spectacle and one that almost felt like a foreign film with (largely) just three characters and their story arcs.
For me this made "OBLIVION" a refreshing change.
We agree to disagree (but very very slightly)
7.5 out of 10.