cult film freak: TOM CRUISE IN OBLIVION

Written by James M. Tate / 4/21/2013 / 2 Comments / 2013 , action , morgan freeman , science fiction , tom cruise

TOM CRUISE IN OBLIVION

4/21/2013 | 2 Comments

year: 2013 cast: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough, Melissa Leo rating: **1/2

Thankfully Tom Cruise, as Jack, repeats the backstory of OBLIVION somewhere in the middle section – it’s all part of an progressively intricate plot that gets a tad confusing when a new character is introduced into the contained vessel where Jack and his partner Victoria are a team sent to, as the description goes, “extract Earth's remaining resources.” This has to do with recovering and fixing damaged drone devices sent down to take out any rogue scavengers. And it all happened because some alien force blew up part of the moon, causing the elements to destroy most of the Earth.

The drones are flying lethal orbs that only respond to Jack’s voice recognition. The coolest scenes are in the beginning as he either soars around in a space ship or rides a high-tech motorcycle, putting the irritable machines back into working order. Then the plot thickens when one of the drones almost kills Jack, who eventually discovers survivors in the murky underground, led by Morgan Freeman’s wise and/or evil old man, Beech.

It wouldn’t be fair to delve any further into the storyline since so much relies on tricks and turns and, of course, that important element all films post M. Night and LOST have to acquire: the twist ending or in this particular case, several twist middles, turning an exploration based sci-fi into a Film Noirish love story: the main character risks everything to help a damsel in distress, who, with a few secrets of her own, shuffles the deck even more.

That’s when things get clunky and the inevitable final battle (the first of two climaxes), involving a horde of hell bent drones, is a more expensive, digitalized version of the MAD MAX universe. And this isn't the first cinematic deja vu: the main setup, of a “worker” cleaning up after an abandoned Earth, borrows from Pixar’s computer animated WALL-E... And we won’t take away any more points for unoriginality, but rather, for throwing too many cooks into the mix – all with very similar results.

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Tags : 2013 , action , morgan freeman , science fiction , tom cruise

James M. Tate

2 comments:

Ripper MadnessApril 24, 2013 at 9:37 PM
Halfway through watching this movie I had the exact feeling of what I had expected this movie to be: A mildly entertaining but underwhelming Tom Cruise science fiction movie. Then I started to like the movie much to my surprise.

Tom Cruise of course is the McDonald's of actors. You know exactly what you are going to get out of him for this type of roll. It may taste bland but it's not going to be horrible but it's not going to be an amazing meal either.

Playing the the English Red-headed Kate Winslet role is an actress I know nothing about, Andrea Riseborough (I say Kate Winslet role because she looks pretty much like a young Kate Winslet right after Heavenly Creatures, of course Kate Winslet is no longer slim and long so to speak). Was Kate Winslet offered this role first? It's hard to imagine that they were going for anything other than that.

Morgan Freeman...I have to refer back to a more recent South Park episode where they reference Morgan Freeman's reason for being in any movie is that they need him to come along and explain what everything is about about half way through. Pretty much his role exactly in this movie.

My personal favorite though was Jaime Lannister, I mean Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. I just dig him as an actor.

Anyway as a science fiction movie OBLIVION was underwhelming but in the end I didn't feel like I wasted my time or money. It seems that's the most I can ask out of a movie nowadays.

Great review sir. Lords of Salem? I still need to see that.
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James M. TateMay 1, 2013 at 11:34 AM
just reviewed lords of salem. as for this movie, with so many twists i can't see seeing it a second time.
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