Rating: 3.5 Shurikens
The most interesting movie out last week was Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise as Jack Harper, a futuristic repairman of sorts who keeps a fleet of highly weaponized robotic drones working to protect the fusion power source which is converting Earth's oceans to energy.
The backstory is pretty elaborate and requires a lengthy narration at the beginning to get the audience up to speed. It goes something like, in the future, Jack Harper is a technician assigned to Tower 49. He is partnered with a beautiful red-haired woman named Victoria, played by Andrea Riseborough, She is a mate and co-worker, and operates the controls of the tower while he travels around in a helicopter-like aircraft. They are tasked with keeping some drones working to protect the power source which is powering the Earth-colony on the largest Saturnian moon, Titan. The reason for this is that all of the people of Earth have left because an alien race of scavengers, called Scavs, came and blew up the moon, causing the Earth to suffer cataclysmic natural disasters and leading to the use of nuclear weapons to put the Scavs in their place.
This all happened 50 years ago, and the Scavs are leading a low-level guerrilla-style campaign trying to stop the people of Earth from obtaining energy for the colony on Titan. There are these huge power plants that are sucking up ocean water and converting it to energy via a fusion reaction. The drones that protect them are almost cute, but they pack an incredible amount of firepower. Jack has to keep these drones working, because the Scavs are always trying to shoot them down.
Now, Jack is having some dream visions, memories of a time before the Earth was devastated. There is this hauntingly beautiful girl, and you can just tell she is a past love. The Empire State Building, that really famous tall building in New York City, is a part of his visions, where obviously something happened way back when. As part of the assignment of Jack and Victoria, there is a mandatory memory wipe that is performed, ostensibly to keep valuable information from falling into the hands of the Scavs, so the audience isn't quite clear at first why he is having the visions.
Finally, there is an orbiting space station which is the control center for the last remaining humans on Earth. It is called the Tet, which I figured is short for Tetrahedron, a four-sided geometrical solid. It is cool-looking in the sky, as well as the depiction of the moon blown to pieces. The Earth is a wasteland for the most part, and there is sand and dark gravel everywhere, and ships are laying on top of it, while the top of the Empire State Building of the future is sticking right up out of the ground.
So, as the plot progresses, Jack is captured by the Scavs, who are led by Beech, played by Morgan Freeman. Morgan Freeman is a venerable actor, who has been in the latest series of Batman movies and has a career that goes back several decades, The Scavs are clothed much like the Jawas is Star Wars. Jack learns that they are actually human, and that everything he believes to be real and true, is actually not. They turn him loose, unharmed, and he goes back to work repairing drones and reporting back to Victoria, who in turn reports to Sally, the person at the Tet who gives them instructions.
Soon, they discover a signal beacon, and Jack goes to investigate, and finds out that it is on the top of the Empire State Building. This triggers some flashbacks for him. Soon, a NASA spacecraft crashes to Earth, and he goes to investigate, finding the suspended animation capsules of several humans. One of them turns out to be the beautiful girl in his visions, Julia, who is played by Olga Kurylenko, who was billed as a co-star as Camille in a James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.
Oblivion was long at over 2 hours. The special effects were excellent, and the plot was interesting enough to maintain involvement. The in many ways resembled Star Wars,with the spacecraft chase scenes. There was plenty of action, too. So, for the money, it wasn't a terrible expense. However, to me, Tom Cruise is overexposed. He has done some good stuff in the past, like Vanilla Sky and Minority Report, and also he has been in four Mission Impossible films, with more on the way. I guess they have him in The Man from U.N.C.L.E, which beats me why they can't find anybody else for that role, but I digress. The point is, Tom Cruise plays pretty much the same role in every movie, with a different name.
A couple of other things bothered my about Oblivion, the biggest of which was the absence of any aliens in the story, after we learn that the Scavs are actually human. Also, Olga Kurylenko is very beautiful, but she has obviously had some cosmetic procedure done on her upper lip. When she lays back in the survival capsule, you can almost see the injection points where they inserted the collagen. I hate this about actresses, that they are so fine and all, but then they have their lips all puffed up to where they look almost disgusting. But again, I digress. Oh, well.
Finally, the woman who plays Victoria, Andrea Riseborough, is also very pretty, but her pupils are hecka dilated! Every scene where she has her face closeups, her pupils are like manhole covers. Either she is using some major drugs, or there are new contact lenses that make pupils look big. They say that people's pupils enlarge when they are looking at something interesting to them, so she must really, really like cameras.
So, overall, I would recommend Oblivion over any other movie out right now, but not unless you have nothing else to do. It has the advantage of being the only decent sci-fi movie out at this time. It would be okay to wait for the Blu-Ray and watch it on your home theater screen. I give it 3.5 Shurikens for action, special effects, and a positive outcome at the end.
