There are a lot of cool ideas peppered throughout Oblivion, Tom Cruise’s new science fiction thriller. Granted, they’re strewn in amongst ideas from several other, usually better, sci-fi movies–I Am Legend, The Matrix, Wall-E, and another more recent entry in the genre whose name I won’t reveal for fear of spoiling this movie’s Big Twist–but there are still some interesting, original ideas on display. Unfortunately, the film plays them out haphazardly, in between boring stretches of exposition and weirdly uninvolving action scenes, and in what sometimes feels like the wrong order to achieve the right impact. At times, director Joseph Kosinski achieves the kind of transporting visuals he brought to Tron: Legacy, but he sadly also replicates that movie’s hermetically-sealed sterility.
Years after an attack by invading alien “Scavengers” has destroyed Earth’s moon and left the planet uninhabitable, maintenance worker Jack Harper (Cruise) patrols the wasted world, performing repair work on a system of robotic drones. The remains of humanity, we are told, are being kept in suspended animation in a massive satellite, preparing for an exodus to a newly-terraformed moon of Saturn, and the drones are in charge of processing seawater necessary for the relocation. Harper lives in a floating headquarters with his communications officer/girlfriend, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). The two receive their marching orders via transmissions from space, delivered by a smiling, southern-accented commander (Melissa Leo) who we sense early on may be up to no good. With only a few weeks left before they join the rest of the human race, Jack and Victoria settle into a routine of repairing drones and outwitting the remaining Scavengers, until a mysterious spacepod crash-lands, containing a mystery woman (Olga Kurylenko) from Jack’s dreams. Her arrival, coupled with the revelation that the Scavengers may not be what they first appeared to be, leaves Jack questioning everything he thought he knew about the end of the world and his own existence.
Oblivion is purportedly adapted from Kosinski’s unpublished graphic novel of the same name (the screenplay was written by Karl Gajdusek and Michael Debruyn). In reality, the graphic novel doesn’t exist–instead, the story had its genesis in a presentation book of ideas accompanied by production artwork. The vagueness of this source material shows in the finished product, a sort-of grab bag of ideas, concepts, and story twists that sometimes intrigue but never fully coalesce into anything of substance. The CGI-created vistas of the ruined planet are often breathtaking, and the designs of the robots and spaceships have the same iPod-sleek design sensibility that characterized the director’s Tron sequel. Even the music by M83 has the same pulsing techno-beat as Daft Punk’s acclaimed score for the Disney sequel. But the story advances in fits and starts, lingering too long on scenes of Cruise’s Harper wandering around the empty Earth and wasting a fine supporting cast that includes Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj (Game Of Thrones) Coster-Waldau, and Zoe Bell (between this and her blink-and-you’ll-miss it appearance in Django Unchained, one has to wonder whether the stuntwoman/actress will ever get any onscreen dialogue again!). Kosinski is an undisputedly gifted visual craftsman, but when it comes to story structure and pacing, he can be a bit, well, oblivious.
Check out the other reviews for Oblivion:
Iain McNally’s Review
Jen Sylvia’s Review
Michelle Ealey’s Review
