Oblivion

I love science fiction and one of this summer's three big sci fi releases was Oblivion with Tom Cruise.   The film looked amazing with brilliant futuristic looking post apocalyptic earth scenery.

Oblivion Backstory

Sometime in the future, the Earth has apparently been invaded by invading  aliens called 'Scavs'.  Our Moon was blown up and destroyed and the resulting effects of the war and the loss of the Moon was devestation on Earth.  Tom Cruise plays Jack Harper a repairman who still lives and works on Earth. Jack and his partner, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) work on earth to repair drone ships that protect the Earths giant power stations from scav attacks and seek out any remaining scavs on Earth to kill them.   Earth now has giant power stations in the ocean that extract the salt and convert the ocean water into power that is sent up to a giant pyramid in the sky called the TET. (A giant sphere was already taken by Star Wars for the death star, and a giant cube was already copyrighted by the Borg).  The TeT we are told is a space station with the last humans on earth.  Most of humanity we are told has gone to Titan to live, and Jack and Victoria and those on the TET are a clean up crew.

Jack and Victoria live on a floating house that would make Andrew Lloyd Wright smile with approval.  It is an incredible sci fi vision and even has a pool with a clear bottom allowing you to swim high above the world.  While Victoria gets orders from their contact on the Tet, Jack goes out on his ship to repair the drones that are programmed to kill scavs.

Troube begins when one day a ship crashes and Jack is able to rescue a woman on board, Julia (Olga Kurylenko).  First of all, two beautiful women on board one space age floating house is one woman too many for Jack's partner, Victoria.  Two, Julia begins to waken memories in Jack's mind and questions aloud many of the 'facts' Jack has accepted about his world.

Who are the scavs?  Who is aboard the TET?  What are the memories Jack keeps having?

My Thoughts

First, I have to say I loved the sci fi look of the film, everything looked great. Whether on the big screen or on blu ray disc, this film looks stunning. Two, I did like the story. One plot point was a bit like the awesome indy Moon that starred Tom Rockwell and was directed by David Bowie's son. However, Oblivion was not a ripoff of Moon, just one story point was similar.   Tom Cruise actually played Jack Harper and I could forget for a couple hours that he was Tom Cruise.  Often Tom Cruise seems to simply play Tom Cruise.  Morgan Freeman is also in the film, but in a minor role. Of course he is awesome, he is Morgan Freeman after all.

I thought director Joseph Kosinski did a good job with the visuals. He also directed the Tron sequel which I quite enjoyed.

I liked the twists in the story, and yes there are twists and it is pretty cool the way the story all unfolds as Jack finds out what is really going on.

Without telling you the ending, I will tell you that I really liked the ending, it made sense and it tied everything together and worked well for the story.

However here are my complaints.  The story drags. It clocks in at over two hours, but felt like 2 and a half.   In many parts of the movie, both my son and I were basically asking them to 'get on with it"  Scenes that should have taken a couple minutes went on and on.  This movie could have easily been half an hour shorter and still conveyed the entire story quite well.   This movie didn't need to be a slow burn to make its point.

Summary

I suppose it is too late for theaters, but this film would be worth seeing on the big screen. It is definitely worht a rental, and the story was good. Even acting by Tom Cruise was good.   I just wish it didn't move along so slow.  Nonetheless, I would give this film 3 1/2 stars and since we can't do half stars, I've rounded it up to 4.

Recommend this product? Yes