Oblivion (***½)
Directed
by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring:
Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj
Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo
Seen:
April 20th 2013
***½
Out of ****
Oblivion
is a relatively rare thing: original sci-fi gorgeously filmed with a story that
will stand back for few others in a fully realized world. Even small details in
Oblivion are fleshed out to such a level that everything just feels natural for
the environments and situations you’re presented with. Everything in the movie
simply works, from the bubble ships to the swimming pool at the sky-habitat Tom
Cruise’s Jack Harper lives in and launches his missions from to the alien Scavs
still roaming earth. The tension is fantastically built and kept and there are
some gunfights and action sequences that truly take your breath away for
ingenuity and choreography, while Tom Cruise lifts it all up with a great
performance as Tech 49, Jack Harper.
It’s
the year 2077, and life on earth was eradicated in a war with the Scavs 60
years earlier when desperate humans employed nuclear war in order to survive.
The remaining humans live in a giant orbiting space station known as the Tet.
All that remains on earth are a few maintenance stations occupied by pairs of
humans, a repairman and a partner, responsible for maintaining drones that keep
scanning the planet’s surface for remaining Scavs and any other threats that
may be found, defending large power stations generating the power the Tet and
their maintenance stations run on. Jack and Victoria Olsen (Riseborough) are
such a team, and while Jack explores his sector of planet earth (and visits the
forest home he built himself) in-between drone repair jobs, Victoria ensures
that the two are an effective team at home, giving Jack the support and backup
he requires for his job.
So
when Jack goes out to answer a distress call from a crashing ship he is
surprised to find a survivor whom he recognises from his dreams, Sally
(Kurylenko). When they’re captured Jack fears the worst but he is confronted
with something completely outside of his expectations as his captors are not
Scavs, but humans led by Malcolm Beach (Freeman), who have a completely
different take on the alien invasion and what the truth really is. Jack is
presented with a decision that will change everything, and he has to re-examine
his entire understanding of everything he knows.
Oblivion
is a fantastic science fiction movie that keeps you glued to the screen for all
the right reasons. The story is compelling and not predictable, the acting is great,
the visuals are sumptuous, and the action is fast paced and high octane. Joseph
Kosinski’s second feature film after Tron: Legacy further establishes him as a
science fiction director to keep an eye on, as he also wrote the (unpublished) graphic
novel that Oblivion is based on. I enjoyed Oblivion immensely, and I will watch
it again in future. And again.
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