As far as eye-candy goes, there’s plenty to enjoy in Oblivion, especially if you experience the film in IMAX. The many sweeping shots of desolate landscapes dotted with ruined familiar landmarks and monuments, in addition to the film’s dizzying aerial battles and chases, provide plenty of breathtaking visuals. There are almost enough of them, in fact, to fully distract you from how derivative and predictable the film’s plot turns out to be.
Almost.
In 2077, drone repairman/security guard Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is literally one of the last men on Earth. He, along with his teammate Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), monitor and maintain gigantic machines which extract and process seawater from the now-deserted planet, which according to Harper’s voice-over narration at the start of the film was devastated by an alien invasion decades before. Jack also maintains the many flying combat drones which provide the bulk of security for the extraction devices against remaining hostiles, known as “Scavs”, flying out to locations where they crash land in his “bubble-ship”, making whatever repairs are necessary, and then hastily identifying himself as “Tech 49” so that the drone doesn’t shoot him where he stands. The drones, you see, kill anything else that moves.
Jack and Victoria’s mission is almost complete — just two weeks more and they will leave Earth behind forever and join the remnants of humanity that have settled on Saturn’s moon, Titan. Victoria can’t wait to leave, but Jack has his doubts. He’s nostalgic about the world that was, almost poetic as he talks about the last Super Bowl ever played while visiting the crater that’s left where the game took place. “We won the war. Why do we have to leave?” he asks.
He’s also haunted by dreams of the world before the war, a world that existed before he was born, and a woman he’s never met but feels he’s supposed to be with. He keeps those dreams a secret from Victoria until the woman herself literally falls out of the sky in a pre-war NASA spacecraft and is almost killed by the drones. Jack saves and revives Julia (Olga Kurylenko), and interacting with her makes him question even further what he’s been told about Earth’s past and what he’s been ordered to do by his superiors on “The Tet” — the gigantic tetrahedron-shaped spacecraft orbiting Earth providing command and control of the drones and the extractors. Jack’s questions lead him and Julia into a fight for their lives against the Tet and its drones as he gets closer to unraveling the secret of what really happened during and after the war, and who he really is.
All of that might have been compelling had we not seen it all before in a number of better sci-fi action films over the past 30 years. Indeed, Oblivion suffers tremendously from the fact that it borrows so liberally from other films in its genre, and not just when it comes to plot. Its production design, though beautiful with its elegant, transparent surfaces, neon lights, and minimal colors in both domestic and desolate locations, looks far too much like director Joseph Kosinski’s previous directing effort, 2010’s Tron: Legacy. Pair that design with the electronica-influenced score by French shoegazers M83 and you’ll have to remind yourself on multiple occasions that you’re not, in fact, watching Tron: Legacy, which itself was a visual feast for the eyes but was hamstrung by flawed storytelling. Oblivion, which is based on a graphic novel written by Kosinski himself, benefits from a less plot-hole-ridden script, but the similar sensory experiences between the two films are too obvious to ignore.
Cruise brings his trademark intensity and conviction to the role of Jack (side note: how many times now has Cruise played a character named “Jack”? At least one other film just six months ago had him playing “Jack Reacher.”), but he’s starting to reach the point where this type of stalwart yet thoughtful hero is exactly what we expect of him. These types of Cruise heroes simply aren’t interesting anymore — it’s when he plays against our expectations, such as his hilarious cameo in Tropic Thunder or his over-the-top take on rock god Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages, that he’s able to get our attention simply because it’s something different.
Morgan Freeman, in comparison, has been at the point where he simply shows up and doesn’t have to really act for years now, and his contribution to this film continues in that vein. It’s not bad by any means — Freeman is beyond reproach in terms of the gravitas and sly wit that he brings to every role he inhabits. But watching him here, it’s conceivable that he could have been filming his last film, Olympus Has Fallen, at the same time as Oblivion, and simply swapped suit-and-tie for post-apocalyptic survival gear between takes.
It’s also important to note that Oblivion, like many Cruise vehicles in his post-Nicole Kidman years, lacks a truly independent, strong female presence in the story. Both women — Victoria and Julia — feel more like pieces of Jack’s story rather than fully-fleshed out people with their own issues and conflicts to resolve. In fact, every character in the film has that feel to them, but it’s the women who are the most shallowly written.
All of this adds up to a middle-of-the-road entry in Cruise’s filmography. If you’re a diehard fan, you may be able to overlook Oblivion‘s shortcomings. Otherwise, steer your bubble-ship in the direction of a different desolate landscape.
Score: 2.5 out of 5
Oblivion
Starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Melissa Leo. Directed by Joseph Kosinski.
Running Time: 126 minutes
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence, brief strong language, and some sensuality/nudity.