Oblivion is the brand new science fiction movie by writer/director Joseph Kosinski, whose previous film was 2010’s Tron: Legacy. It takes place in the year 2073, after an alien invasion sixty years prior which destroyed the Moon and nearly all of Earth. Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is Tech 49, one of the last remaining humans stationed on the planet. He and his communications officer Victoria (Andres Riseborough) are part of an operation to extract the planet’s remaining resources for use on the Moon Titan, which is where the surviving humans have settled. As Jack goes though his daily routine, he begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself. And like in all good science fiction, not all is what it seems.
What ‘s most memorable about this movie is how beautiful the shots are. Cinematographer Claudio Miranda, who recently won an Academy Award for his work on Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, shot this movie with such talent that the nature and environments came to life. This movie looks so dazzling, it’s amazing how good the world can look when untouched by man. Even the wasteland areas looked great. From going high above the clouds to the mountains, to the plain dry desert, or even the interiors of Jack Parker’s future home, everything looks spectacular.
What didn’t work so well was the score for the film. The original music by Anthony Gonzalez and Joseph Trapanese was so over the top and stereotypically “Sci-Fi” in nature that it became more of a nuisance. It was that kind of score where something is about to happen, so they make everything super loud and over the top. Music should convey emotion, not tell you how to feel. It gave you the feeling of “Oh, I’ve heard this before, but better in other movies.” Also it relies heavily on that damn Inception type “BOOM” that’s used everywhere. Lets put a stop to that right now Hollywood. When it was used once it was cool, but when used everywhere, it just shows us how afraid you are of new things.
Tom Cruise is a Movie Star. Hate him or love him, but he is a movie star nonetheless. Here he brings his regular guy humor, action, and slow speaking that we can expect and enjoy. He’s good, but it might be time for him to stop playing these roles. His female lead Julia (Olga Kurylenko) looks and feels more like his daughter than a love interest. It’s not creepy like Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones in 1999s Entrapment, but we do notice that Cruise is way too old for the leading ladies in these films. Rounding out the cast in small, but important roles is Morgan Freeman and Melissa Leo, of whom I really could have used more of. They’re in and out so fast that you forget that they’re in the movie. But when they do pop back in we’re glad, because we spend a lot of time with Cruise’s character, even if he is the main character. But most of the time we spend with him is just boring. It could be argued that they were character-building scenes, but it was mainly him standing around thinking. That’s not very exciting.
That was one of the major hurdles of the film. It’s not very exciting. There are some good action scenes, but they’re very few and far between. Overall this is a very slow-paced movie. The tension is in trying to figure out what’s going on, but by the time the filmmakers do get around to telling us, you might find it hard to care. It’s a solid movie, with some great special effects, beautiful cinematography, and some good acting, but other than that, the story turns into a mix of other stories we have seen before. The filmmakers never tried to hide what their influences were. It’s not a bad movie, nor is it an amazing movie. It’s a solid science fiction movie that few will love, but many will be pleased they saw it for the endless science fiction debate I’m sure it will spark from sci-fi fans. And at the end of the day, that’s not so bad.