Oblivion - Movie Review

Tom Cruise zipping through the sky–shades of Top Gun. It worked in the ‘80s, why not try it again? That seemed to be the thought at the heart of Oblivion, Cruise’s new science fiction/action film. But fancy flying and beautiful vistas can only take you so far, then you start looking more deeply at the plot . . . .

The setup (from the voice-over) is that Earth was thrown into chaos, then invaded by aliens. We fought back and won the war–but the process left Earth destroyed. Now the seawater is being converted to hydroelectric power for a colony on Titan, where nearly all of the remaining humans have been evacuated. Heavily-armed drones protect the extraction rigs.

Jack Harper (Cruise) and his partner Victoria Olsen (Andrea Riseborough) are among the few remaining humans on Earth. They live in Tower 49, a gorgeous glass-enclosed apartment high up in the mountains with everything they could possibly need. It serves as their base of operations as well: Vica is in charge of communications and “watches Jack’s back” as he commutes down to Earth to maintain and repair the drones.

Vica, who spends all her time in the tower, longs for the day when they leave Earth behind for good and join the colony on Titan. Jack, who spends time on Earth and sees signs of the civilization that was, isn’t as ready to leave it behind forever.

There are only four major characters, and a few more that appear briefly. We really get to know Jack and understand his character. We feel Victoria’s frustration, and Julia Kurakova’s elation and Malcolm Beech’s determination. Kudos all around for the performances here, especially Cruise, who went all out, and Morgan Freeman (Beech), who is incapable of a bad performance. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones has a small part that he absolutely nails, as one of Beech’s staff.

The sweeping vistas and absolutely magnificent portrayals of a post-apocalyptic Earth are nothing short of amazing. The special effects are first-rate. Things go boom! in fairly unexpected ways to great effect.

But the narrative structure of Oblivion contains a lot of monologs–it starts with a voice-over by Jack Harper to set things up, and later exchanges by several characters (Harper, Beech, Kurakova) are just long infodumps, with no attempt at dialog. Not the most interesting way to tell a story.

The plot had a number of problems. Starting with something casually mentioned in the opening setup (that was if nothing else, lazy plotting), to nonsensical search methods, to issues with the science (DNA doesn’t work that way. Really.), to objects being left in one place and reappearing where needed, to civilization is over yet we still have high heels and cigars.

Despite the issues, Oblivion was solid entertainment. I found myself caught up in the plot, and though I guessed some of what was going on, other pieces surprised me. More importantly, I came to care about the characters, and wanted to find out what happened to them–in the end, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Recommended because it made me care, and I love the way it depicted post-apocalyptic Earth. Stay away if poorly-done science or plots with big (truck-sized!) holes in them make a borderline movie unbearable for you.

By Elektra Hammond

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