Tom Cruise is back with another star vehicle to add to his resume. The sci-fi epic entitled Oblivion is one of the year’s most ambitious films, but not one of the best. It certainly borrows a lot of its ideas and imagery from other sci-fi films such as Star Wars, Total Recall, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Independence Day, and most of all Wall-E. In fact, dare I say it’s incredibly similar to Wall-E. But the film is actually based on an unpublished graphic novel of the same name by director Joseph Kosinski and Arvid Nelson. Kosinski has collaborated with screenwriters William Monahan, Karl Gajdusek, and Michael Arndt to create a very thin script. Not terrible or even that bad, but nothing great or even spectacular. Kosinski’s last film was TRON: Legacy, which is a guilty pleasure of mine. And in many ways, Oblivion is very similar to TRON: Legacy. Both films have amazing production value and a fantastic musical score, but the story and characters are minuscule despite decent ideas. Oblivionstarts very strong, but as it progresses it becomes a little tiresome and even confusing.
The film takes place in the year 2077 on Earth, which is now a deserted wasteland. This is due to an alien invasion as well as destruction of the moon that had occurred sixty years earlier. Everything is pretty much in ruins because of the aliens, or “Scavs” as they are referred to. The remaining human survivors have now moved to Titan, one of Jupiter’s moons, and have started to build a colony there. But we actually never see Titan. Regardless, two humans are left on Earth: a drone repairman named Jack Reacher, I mean Harper (Cruise), and his communications officer/lover Victoria “Vika” Olsen (Andrea Riseborough). They live on a high-rise skydeck in New York City, despite that the city is buried and all you can see are the tops of the Empire State Building and the torch of the Statue of Liberty. They generally report to their supervisor named Sally (Melissa Leo), a creepily cheerful Southerner who always appears on video and operates from a space station called the Tet. Jack and Vika’s mission is to secure and send Earth’s resources by sending them to the Tet. They have two weeks left on Earth until they can finally join the rest of the human race on Titan.
Now due to security reasons, Jack and Vika’s have been wiped out, but Jack somehow keeps getting visions of him and a woman on the observation deck of the Empire State building long before Earth was in ruins. One particular day while Jack is patrolling the area, he sees a ship crash land and decides to investigate it. He finds six humans in cryogenic sleep. One of them is a Russian astronaut called Julia (Olga Kurylenko), a woman whom Jack recognizes from his dreams. He saves her from one of the drones, which is programmed to kill any form of life as they patrol the planet. It ends up killing the rest of Julia’s crew. Jack brings her to his base to find out what her story is, but Vika is extremely reluctant. She fears that Julia will not only endanger their operations, but may get in the way of her relationship with Jack. But more complicated plot points come along the way. One of them involves Jack coming across a group of Scavs who are actually humans part of a resistance led by Malcolm Beech, played by the always-welcome Morgan Freeman, and his right-hand man Sykes, played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, a.k.a. Jaime Lannister from “Game of Thrones.” So because of all this, Jack sets out to question his mission as well as his history.
Yeah, the plot does get twistingly complicated after the half hour of buildup and backstory for our main characters. It really does turn into Wall-E: a survivor on an uninhabited Earth does his day-to-day job while the rest of humanity is away in space until a woman with a special mission comes down and turns things around, leading to potentially the rescue of the planet. Cruise does bring some dedication to his role, even though at times he can be more robotic than WALL-E. However, his interests in both the main women are not entirely convincing. After seeing Riseborough in the outstanding Disconnect, I have much to expect from her. But her performance here seems emotionally vacant. The same thing can be said for former Bond girl Kurylenko. None of this has to do with bad acting or even miscasting, but mostly not as strong writing. But no performances destroy the film here. As I’ve once said before, Morgan Freeman now gets a free pass in any film he’s in, especially here where he dons a black cape and shades and smokes a cigar for the majority of the film. Badass.
But all writing and performances aside, the best aspects of Oblivion come from the production itself. Cinematographer Claudio Miranda, who had recently won an Oscar for Life of Pi and had previously worked on TRON: Legacy, uses extensive and beautiful shots to capture the essence of a destroyed Earth. The production design by Darren Gilford, who also worked on TRON: Legacy, uses a lot of CGI and enhanced physical elements for the sets and landscapes. It almost looks like Prometheus at times and it does manage to be wonderful. The production values are some of the strongest in any film of 2013 by far. However, the musical score is to die for. Instead of getting the legendary French electronic band Daft Punk to compose the score like in TRON: Legacy, another French electronic band calledM83 was chosen. Instead of just using your typical orchestral arrangements, the band goes all out by combing electronic music as well. It’s emotional and big and it does have an epic feel to it.
Oblivion may not be regarded as a memorable and original sci-fi film, but it does have a sense of decency to call it its own. Again going back to TRON: Legacy, you are not watching it for the story, but rather for the experience. The architecture, sound, and music play huge roles into getting you to endure another Tom Cruise film. When he flies his little bubble ship around the land that was once your average Earth, you’re basically going on a thrilling experience. Maybe a couple more rewrites and not so many writers could have made Oblivion much stronger, but it is certainly worth one viewing. If you can pay attention to the twists and turns in the second and third acts, then mad kudos to you. However, there is plenty of action with the drones and the Scavs, and the cinematography capturing the landscapes while M83’s incredible score plays will probably get you invested. And it is always delightful to see Morgan Freeman.
Three out of five stars.
Oblivion is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, brief strong language, and some sensuality/nudity.
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