Oblivion (2013)

 

If you are up for a beautifully shot post-apocalyptic film starring Tom Cruise, then this will most likely be your thing. Is it a great film? Not exactly, as the supposed tension quickly dissipates when you have seen quite a number of films. 

The twist is easy to spot. A little too easy.

But you could do worse.

As stated, the world is in tatters after a war between humanity and what is referred to as Scavs. Jack Harper (Cruise) and his coworker/partner Viktoria are the only two humans left and are making sure that giant machines can convert enough fuel so they can finally join the rest of humanity on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn by way of the Tet, another massive spaceship/station in orbit. Humanity won the war, but that's about it. Jack's days are filled with repairing security drones, as the Scavs regularly try and destroy the machines. But Jack is haunted by dreams of a mysterious woman, which shouldn't be possible as both his and Viktoria's memory was wiped for this mission.

See, there's the problem. If the film hadn't specified this piece of information, the mystery would have been greater. Now anyone can immediately figure it all out. Ah well...

Things go even fuirther south when an ancient spaceship crashes and Jack discovers the woman he has been dreaming about. So things are clearly not what they seem. But what is truly happening here?

Take a wild guess or three. You'll nail it the first time. Trust me.

So storywise, there is little to no suspense or mystery. A bit of a shame, really. If they had ditched the starting voice-over and left some things unsaid, maybe the twist would actually be more that. But this is what we've got. This makes it sound as if the film has no merit, which would be a lie. The cinematography is gorgeous. They went to Iceland for a large part of the shoot and the otherworldly landscapes there fit the atmosphere. The designs of the futuristic buildings and ships is also beautiful and the sound design is excellent.

There's also little to criticise about the actors, as most do their best to convey the drama and mystery. Tom Cruise is really good here, as is Andrea Riseborough. Olga Kurylenko unfortunately doesn't have a lot to do and she gets lost a little. Who really feels like an afterthought, is Morgan Freeman's character. Not only is he relegated to spouting exposition most of the time, it feels as though he's sleepwalking through his part. A shame, but it's still Morgan Freeman, of course. 

So all in all, a decent albeit predictable science fiction adventure. You won't regret watching this, but you won't miss out if you decide to spend your time elsewhere.