OBLIVION (2013) – The Review

One complaint of older film fans is that the stars of today can’t compare to those from Hollywood’s “golden age”. Modern actors appear in one type or genre of film and don’t seem to branch out. Clark Gable or Tyrone Power could go from romantic comedy to action thriller and even musicals and westerns. Well there’s one actor working today that truly attempts a variety of films, and he’s still at the top of the box office: Mr. Tom Cruise. Last year he scored with a musical comedy (ROCK OF AGES) in the Summer and squeezed in an action thriller (perhaps the start of a new franchise), JACK REACHER right before Christmas. In the last few weeks before the official Summer blockbusters, he’s returned to the science fiction arena without the director that guided him in his last two SF epics, MINORITY REPORT and WAR OF THE WORLDS: Steven Spielberg. As he did with Brad Bird in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL Cruise is working with a relative feature film rookie. Director/screenwriter Joseph Kosinski is still fresh from his debut effort TRON: LEGACY. So what kind of futuristic fable has been cooked up by the vet star and the rookie?

Tom Cruise’s voice over narration gets us up to speed on his OBLIVION character Jack. More than sixty years in the future, the Earth is a burned out shell thanks to a battle with alien invading hordes. Nuclear weapons stopped them, but made most of the planet uninhabitable. Earth’s population escaped to a floating space station called the Tet, before making Saturn’s moon Titan their new home, Huge platform stations syphon Earth’s oceans for its energy reserves. Flying round probes known as drones monitor and protect these stations from the few remaining bands of aliens called “scavengers”. Jack is part of a team with his wife Vickie (Andrea Riseborough) who live high above the planet to perform maintenance duties on the drones. Every day Jack takes a small aircraft down to the surface while Vickie provides him intel and checks in with their supervisor at Tet, Sally (Melissa Leo). Although his memory had been wiped years ago, Jack relishes roaming the remains of a sports stadium and is somehow drawn to the Empire State Building (only its observation deck level is left) via some strange dreams of another woman he met before the war. He’s even got a cabin-like hideaway deep in the forest away from the radar scans. Jack and Vickie are counting the days before their term of duty ends and they return to Tet. But some odd things are going on. The scavengers attempt to capture him, not destroy him. Then Jack investigates a crashed space capsule. One of the pods contains a sleeping woman, the one from his dreams…Julia (Olga Kurylenko). This starts Jack on a journey that may give him all the answers that he has been seeking or will result in his death.

Cruise flexes his star power charisma as Jack who becomes the audience’s gateway into this weird new world that has many familiar touchstones. His physicality is put to great use in the film’s many action sequences, whether he’s blasting at the baddies, engaged in a fight to the death with an unexpected opponent, or zipping across the barren landscape on his (very cool) collapsible motorbike. His best acting work may be in the quiet times as we see the confusion when he must process ideas that go against everything he believes, especially when the girl of his dreams intrudes on his reality. And nobody looks better piloting a space craft or fighter jet than TOP GUN’s “Maverick”. Although he’s featured prominently in the ads, Morgan Freeman has more of a supporting role as the black-clad Earth dweller that might hold the key to all the secrets. His few scenes with Cruise give the film a much-needed energy boost. Riseborough is a great sexy brainiac as Jack’s partner, who’s all business during the working day, but really lets her hair down (and sheds the space duds) after hours. But she has a tough time competing with the mysterious, sultry Kurlenko as the intruder in this high-tech Eden. It’s a shame she doesn’t have more scenes working side by side with Cruise besides being a damsel-in-distress. Leo is terrific as the icy cold, smiling face of authority seen on the monitors. Her repeated sing-song delivery of ” Are you an effective team?” soon as has a threatening sting. This is an impressive supporting cast, but this is definitely rests on Cruise’s shoulders.

But not even this movie star of three decades (really, RISKY BUSINESS is over 30 years old?) can make this poorly plotted, slowly pace sci-fi mish-mash work. Or should I say SF stew? Mix in I AM LEGEND and WALL-E, add a smidgen of THE MATRIX and TOTAL RECALL, and let simmer for two very long hours.It seems that as soon as the story would gain some momentum, another tedious firefight (with lotsa’ sparks) would grind things to a screeching halt. The drones are the flick’s deadliest threat, but often look like flittering shiny white bowling balls with a red cyclops eye. A music score that seems disconnected to the action until it hammers in a heroic ending flourish doesn’t add much. Claudio Miranda’s cinematography is exceptional as are the visual effects and art direction (love the clear swimming pool at the bottom of the high-rise work station), but it’s not enough to make this misguided futuristic fable worth your time. It’s a great looking flick that needed a more polished script and much tighter editing. I suppose that’s the reason this film’s get a late April release rather than face off against the Summer’s box office onslaught. Save your movie money for them and put off a tip to OBLIVION for a rainy day rental.

2 Out of 5 Stars