Oblivion

Oblivion is not by any means a bad movie. It's got a great tone, great imagery, and a pretty darn solid performance from Mr. Cruise. It was very strongly directed, with some pretty amazing cinematography and some great sci-fi ideas.

But, with that solid performance from Mr. Cruise comes a pretty depressing performance from his co lead Andrea Risborough. And with the great imagery comes imagery that doesn't really make sense. And with strong direction, comes a sadly predictable story.

The story follows Tom Cruise as the last person on Earth with only one other woman, as they protect giant machines sucking up ocean water to generate power for a colony on Titan...? Wait, what? Erm...okay guess we'll go with it. For some reason there are no people on Earth anymore because the moon was destroyed...and caused tidal fluctuations and earthquakes and...yet somehow we won the war...? I wanna see THAT part of the story.

Yeah, well from the first trailer where it reveals Tom Cruise demanding the true identity of his partner, Morgan Freeman revealing that theres more than he knows, yada yada yada you see where this is all going. And sadly, as you see where it's all going, you also see the twists and all of it's flaws pretty obviously reveal themselves. It doesn't work. And that's sad. The effort put into the movie is truly there, but so much of it leaves you asking questions that, when answered, either really don't make any sense or just leave you in a big letdown wondering how you even got there.

Moreso, it borrows a lot. Obvious allusions to The Matrix, to almost every alien movie made, there's too many to count. It's great to borrow ideas, even steal ideas from sources you admire. But this was getting to be a little heavy, and I didn't like it.

Still, the atmosphere and Cruise did manage to save this one from being a total mess. And the imagery and scope of this enormous and unfamiliar version of Earth are fascinating. It's worth checking out, but maybe wait to grab this one on netflix.

Score: 2/5