Tom Cruise is a sky-bound patroller of a desolate Earth who makes a world-changing discovery in this big-budget futuristic sci-fi, from the director of Tron: Legacy (adapting his own comic book). Co-stars Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Read more.
It’s not just Tom Cruise having flashbacks in Oblivion. Despite the film being something of a modern rarity – a big-budget sci-fi tale based on an original idea – Oblivion is as blatantly strewn with elements of other genre predecessors as its post-apocalyptic setting is with iconic New York landmarks. By time the credits roll, though, you’ll be ready to forgive the familiarity as director Joseph Kosinski seldom over-reaches in assembling this enjoyable, if not (metaphorically) earth-shattering, tale.
Kosinski quickly establishes Oblivion’s scorched Earth setting – complete with a stunningly pulverised moon in orbit that brings to mind the trippy objects in A Quiet Earth’s skyline – and the straight-forward mission of “effective team” Jack (Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), who work in tandem to locate and repair a fleet of security drones. Cruise has always made for an unconvincing everyman, so as we zip around with him across a stunning icy and rocky landscape (now concealing the Big Apple) there are some cringe-worthy moments including a terrible Superbowl monologue. Worse still is his terrible romantic chemistry with both Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko, problematic given the importance of the latter’s relationship with Cruise to the overall film.
There’s plenty to enjoy if you can look past the unconvincing emotional connections though. Oblivion boasts a bunch of plot twists, and while many of them can be seen coming, there’s a refreshing lack of showiness to the way Kosinski unfurls his narrative. In not going for one twist too many or trying for too spectacular a conclusion, Oblivion proves more satisfying than you’d expect based on these only semi-positive sentiments.
