Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Written by Karl Gajdusek (screenplay),
Michael Arndt (screenplay) and Kosinski (graphics novel original story). Starring Tom Cruise (Jack),
Morgan Freeman (Beech),
Olga Kurylenko (Julia), Andrea Riseborough (Victoria).
Bottom line: Pretty average sci-fi action movie starring Tom Cruise; nothing really new, pretty graphics and Tom Cruise make this a pleasant enough movie but one that can be missed.
2.5/4
Oblivion is about Jack Harper, a man who lives and works in the post-apocalyptic future. Aliens came and warred with Mankind. We used nukes and defeated the enemy but scorched the Earth so the survivors were shipped to a Saturn moon. Jack and his wife, Victoria (Riseborough), are part of a clean-up team in charge of repairing attack drones (how politically relevant!) which hunt down any remaining aliens. One day, Jack sees a space capsule filled with cryogenically frozen men and women crash land. As Jack lands to investigate, drones start killing the humans. He manages to save one, a beautiful woman about whom he has dreamt and brings her back to his home. Before long, Jack is captured a man named Beech (Freeman) and his motley crew of humans. Who are they? Who is the mysterious woman?
Jack Reacher premiered just a few months before Oblivion and in my review for that terrible movie I wondered why? Why release a Tom Cruise so close to another? Why release Jack Reacher before Oblivion in that order and not the other way around? Was it so we get into a Tom Cruise mood and want more of him or could it be that we are meant to leave Oblivion saying, 'Well, it was better than Jack Reacher,'? After watching both of these movies, I can attest that both possibilities are accurate.
As I said in my review for Jack Reacher, I am something of a fan of Tom Cruise or, rather I should say, Tom Cruise has a special place in my heart. Whenever I see him, I get the vibe that he knows (or thinks) he is on a mission to bring a life changing cinematic experience to the audience. I really appreciate how seriously he takes his roles. He and his movies are consistent. Morgan Freeman, on the other hand and to my surprise, doesn't help this movie. I don't know why he was there. There doesn't seem to be any effort to get us emotional invested in his character other than the fact that it is played by Morgan Freeman. Were you unsatisfied by Michael Caine’s role in Dark Knight Rises? It was that feeling but with Morgan Freeman.
Going into this movie, I expected to see pretty computer graphics, explosions, patriotism and generic thematic material. I was not disappointed. The futuristic Apple-like design is lovely and the computer graphics are easy on the eyes. The director was also responsible for Tron: Legacy and you can see a similar energy spent on making the futuristic technology appealing. Tom Cruise is busy being Tom Cruise but he is less offensive here than other movies. I wasn't the biggest fan of the music. It was as if the film was trying to get us to think, "This is epic!" by bashing our ears with dramatic music.
Overall, Oblivion is an okay Tom Cruise sci-fi action movie. In terms of its plot twists, it doesn't really discuss anything new and the ending is emotionally confusing. It’s like the movie is trying to make a happy ending but it isn’t really well thought out and, as a result, it doesn’t work. I will discuss it more shortly, but with some spoilers. If you haven't seen this, don't worry about it. You can see better action elsewhere and better sci-fi elsewhere. If it is on TV and you have nothing else to do, there are worse ways to spend two hours. It has the same vibe as Speed; everybody has seen at least some of it because it has been on TV so often and, even if you haven’t, you get the idea of the movie. From here on out, I will take a closer look at the movie, so mind yourself of spoilers.
Let me note, that when I say ‘aliens’ I am just mimicking the word choice of the movie. The aliens are called “scabs” but, in reality, ‘they’ are just a single robot core. Now, Jack eventually realizes that the woman who came in the capsule is actually his wife not the woman he has been living with. He had been dreaming about her and those dreams turned out to be repressed memories. Total Recall, anyone? Plot twist! Tom Cruise is not Jack, he is a clone called Tech 49. 'That's ok though', the wife says,' your memories are still yours and, thus, you are still my husband'. This is what bothers me about this movie. The realization that you are a clone, that you have no individual identity would be crushing. Oblivion looks at it, dismisses and says, “Let’s kill those alien monsters!” To make things more dramatic, when Tom Cruise (Tech 49) meets a clone (Tech 52) they have a big fight scene. But wait, if he is a clone that means…plot twist! The aliens actually won the war and are now using the clones to kill the remaining humans. What is the solution? Have Tech 49 and Morgan Freeman fly a nuke into the alien mother-ship in a suicide mission. You would think this is going to be a sad ending, right? Jack's wife is now alone raising their newly conceived child. Fortunately, Tech 52, who escaped from the earlier fight, shows up with the rest of the human survivors. Using the same logic as before, Tech 52 is the same person as Tech 49 (the one who sacrificed himself for humanity). Is this happy? I don’t think so and, if you think about it, it gets worse. If the one clone was named Tech 49 and another is Tech 52 that means there are at least 50 more Tom Cruises running around who don't know anything about what is going on. What happens when they meet? A fight to the death? Will the wife collect them and have one Tom Cruise per room? I wonder if they dismissed the issues of cloning because it didn’t lend itself to be an action movie.
So, instead of looking directly at cloning, what did it examine? My first thought was to say “Technology vs. Nature” or that humanity runs the risk of becoming slaves to technology. A lot of sci-fi movies do that. Twice the movie claims that the nuclear weapons destroyed the aliens but at the cost nuclear fallout. The radiation in some areas is so bad there if a person crossed that is called the 'radiation perimeter' a person would die in moments. I didn’t get the feeling that the movie was criticizing the use of nukes but saying that they were a necessary evil to defend the Earth. After all, a nuclear bomb is used to finally destroy the aliens. Furthermore, the ‘radiation perimeter’ turns out to be a myth propagated by the aliens to control the clones. Nuclear weapons are powerful and destructive but they are okay because humans are the ones in charge. Let’s disregard the assumption that only responsible humans have nuclear weapons. I suppose an irresponsible human is better than a cold machine. We can also consider the use of the attack drones which are used to hunt the remaining humans.
An interesting scene comes when Jack is reprogramming a drone to attack the mother-ship. He turns on the chained down machine, it makes a roar-like sound and he says to the crowd of onlookers, ‘Give it some space, it isn’t happy’. The sound and his statement animalize the machine.
But after thinking about talking about this movie for a while, this isn’t that interesting. I mentioned above that the director, Joseph Kosinski, as directed Tron: Legacy. I was reading an article by one of the guys in charge of the art direction. A lot of energy was spent on the graphics and user interfaces for the systems so they would actually be reasonably realistic. It was a very interesting read. Knowing this, we can and should look at the use of interfaces in Oblivion. People are constantly looking through things: the plane’s HUD, a sniper rifle scope, the attack drone’s camera, the alien’s satellite, the 'ancient armor' used by the human survivors. The movie could be commenting on how interfaces inherently distort reality and the danger of this is our dependence on such interfaces.
To what extent can we discern a person's emotional state from a tweet or a status update? This distillation of information under the veil of efficiency can be dangerous when unchecked or under control by a nefarious party. Recall Newspeak from "1984" by George Orwell, which is a new, condensed form of English used by the State for control. In Oblivion, the definition of 'enemy' is determined by the robot. The robot uses Tech 49 as simply a tool who trusts his tools. At one point, Morgan Freeman's character is about to kill Tech 49 but then hesitates and looks at his with his own eyes at which point he knows that Tech 49 is now aware of the situation. There is much to be said about this subject but I hesitate to delve much further. I am currently reading "The Language of New Media" by Lev Manovich which discusses interfaces with the rise of the Internet, computers and also with respect to cinema.
Overall, I found Oblivion pleasant enough to recommend: the graphics are pretty, Tom Cruise is being Tom Cruise, and the subject matter is fascinating. It may not be the best movie ever but it is good enough. It could be fun to watch and discuss with some friends.
Oblivion is about Jack Harper, a man who lives and works in the post-apocalyptic future. Aliens came and warred with Mankind. We used nukes and defeated the enemy but scorched the Earth so the survivors were shipped to a Saturn moon. Jack and his wife, Victoria (Riseborough), are part of a clean-up team in charge of repairing attack drones (how politically relevant!) which hunt down any remaining aliens. One day, Jack sees a space capsule filled with cryogenically frozen men and women crash land. As Jack lands to investigate, drones start killing the humans. He manages to save one, a beautiful woman about whom he has dreamt and brings her back to his home. Before long, Jack is captured a man named Beech (Freeman) and his motley crew of humans. Who are they? Who is the mysterious woman?
Jack Reacher premiered just a few months before Oblivion and in my review for that terrible movie I wondered why? Why release a Tom Cruise so close to another? Why release Jack Reacher before Oblivion in that order and not the other way around? Was it so we get into a Tom Cruise mood and want more of him or could it be that we are meant to leave Oblivion saying, 'Well, it was better than Jack Reacher,'? After watching both of these movies, I can attest that both possibilities are accurate.
As I said in my review for Jack Reacher, I am something of a fan of Tom Cruise or, rather I should say, Tom Cruise has a special place in my heart. Whenever I see him, I get the vibe that he knows (or thinks) he is on a mission to bring a life changing cinematic experience to the audience. I really appreciate how seriously he takes his roles. He and his movies are consistent. Morgan Freeman, on the other hand and to my surprise, doesn't help this movie. I don't know why he was there. There doesn't seem to be any effort to get us emotional invested in his character other than the fact that it is played by Morgan Freeman. Were you unsatisfied by Michael Caine’s role in Dark Knight Rises? It was that feeling but with Morgan Freeman.
Going into this movie, I expected to see pretty computer graphics, explosions, patriotism and generic thematic material. I was not disappointed. The futuristic Apple-like design is lovely and the computer graphics are easy on the eyes. The director was also responsible for Tron: Legacy and you can see a similar energy spent on making the futuristic technology appealing. Tom Cruise is busy being Tom Cruise but he is less offensive here than other movies. I wasn't the biggest fan of the music. It was as if the film was trying to get us to think, "This is epic!" by bashing our ears with dramatic music.
Overall, Oblivion is an okay Tom Cruise sci-fi action movie. In terms of its plot twists, it doesn't really discuss anything new and the ending is emotionally confusing. It’s like the movie is trying to make a happy ending but it isn’t really well thought out and, as a result, it doesn’t work. I will discuss it more shortly, but with some spoilers. If you haven't seen this, don't worry about it. You can see better action elsewhere and better sci-fi elsewhere. If it is on TV and you have nothing else to do, there are worse ways to spend two hours. It has the same vibe as Speed; everybody has seen at least some of it because it has been on TV so often and, even if you haven’t, you get the idea of the movie. From here on out, I will take a closer look at the movie, so mind yourself of spoilers.
Let me note, that when I say ‘aliens’ I am just mimicking the word choice of the movie. The aliens are called “scabs” but, in reality, ‘they’ are just a single robot core. Now, Jack eventually realizes that the woman who came in the capsule is actually his wife not the woman he has been living with. He had been dreaming about her and those dreams turned out to be repressed memories. Total Recall, anyone? Plot twist! Tom Cruise is not Jack, he is a clone called Tech 49. 'That's ok though', the wife says,' your memories are still yours and, thus, you are still my husband'. This is what bothers me about this movie. The realization that you are a clone, that you have no individual identity would be crushing. Oblivion looks at it, dismisses and says, “Let’s kill those alien monsters!” To make things more dramatic, when Tom Cruise (Tech 49) meets a clone (Tech 52) they have a big fight scene. But wait, if he is a clone that means…plot twist! The aliens actually won the war and are now using the clones to kill the remaining humans. What is the solution? Have Tech 49 and Morgan Freeman fly a nuke into the alien mother-ship in a suicide mission. You would think this is going to be a sad ending, right? Jack's wife is now alone raising their newly conceived child. Fortunately, Tech 52, who escaped from the earlier fight, shows up with the rest of the human survivors. Using the same logic as before, Tech 52 is the same person as Tech 49 (the one who sacrificed himself for humanity). Is this happy? I don’t think so and, if you think about it, it gets worse. If the one clone was named Tech 49 and another is Tech 52 that means there are at least 50 more Tom Cruises running around who don't know anything about what is going on. What happens when they meet? A fight to the death? Will the wife collect them and have one Tom Cruise per room? I wonder if they dismissed the issues of cloning because it didn’t lend itself to be an action movie.
So, instead of looking directly at cloning, what did it examine? My first thought was to say “Technology vs. Nature” or that humanity runs the risk of becoming slaves to technology. A lot of sci-fi movies do that. Twice the movie claims that the nuclear weapons destroyed the aliens but at the cost nuclear fallout. The radiation in some areas is so bad there if a person crossed that is called the 'radiation perimeter' a person would die in moments. I didn’t get the feeling that the movie was criticizing the use of nukes but saying that they were a necessary evil to defend the Earth. After all, a nuclear bomb is used to finally destroy the aliens. Furthermore, the ‘radiation perimeter’ turns out to be a myth propagated by the aliens to control the clones. Nuclear weapons are powerful and destructive but they are okay because humans are the ones in charge. Let’s disregard the assumption that only responsible humans have nuclear weapons. I suppose an irresponsible human is better than a cold machine. We can also consider the use of the attack drones which are used to hunt the remaining humans.
An interesting scene comes when Jack is reprogramming a drone to attack the mother-ship. He turns on the chained down machine, it makes a roar-like sound and he says to the crowd of onlookers, ‘Give it some space, it isn’t happy’. The sound and his statement animalize the machine.
But after thinking about talking about this movie for a while, this isn’t that interesting. I mentioned above that the director, Joseph Kosinski, as directed Tron: Legacy. I was reading an article by one of the guys in charge of the art direction. A lot of energy was spent on the graphics and user interfaces for the systems so they would actually be reasonably realistic. It was a very interesting read. Knowing this, we can and should look at the use of interfaces in Oblivion. People are constantly looking through things: the plane’s HUD, a sniper rifle scope, the attack drone’s camera, the alien’s satellite, the 'ancient armor' used by the human survivors. The movie could be commenting on how interfaces inherently distort reality and the danger of this is our dependence on such interfaces.
To what extent can we discern a person's emotional state from a tweet or a status update? This distillation of information under the veil of efficiency can be dangerous when unchecked or under control by a nefarious party. Recall Newspeak from "1984" by George Orwell, which is a new, condensed form of English used by the State for control. In Oblivion, the definition of 'enemy' is determined by the robot. The robot uses Tech 49 as simply a tool who trusts his tools. At one point, Morgan Freeman's character is about to kill Tech 49 but then hesitates and looks at his with his own eyes at which point he knows that Tech 49 is now aware of the situation. There is much to be said about this subject but I hesitate to delve much further. I am currently reading "The Language of New Media" by Lev Manovich which discusses interfaces with the rise of the Internet, computers and also with respect to cinema.
Overall, I found Oblivion pleasant enough to recommend: the graphics are pretty, Tom Cruise is being Tom Cruise, and the subject matter is fascinating. It may not be the best movie ever but it is good enough. It could be fun to watch and discuss with some friends.
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