Thursday, April 18, 2013

Oblivion: sci-fi dejavu

I am never a Tom Cruise fan. But after MI: Ghost Protocol, seems like Tom Cruise is achieving a new height in his career. Though not physically though. Tom Cruise in sci-fi? Bet it is not related to his Scientology calling. Therefore, we decided to judge for ourselves how did Tom Cruise fare in Oblivion.

Oblivion (2013) Poster


Story is rather simple. Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria are clean up crew for what ever is left of mother earth. Years ago, some alien species invaded earth but human, using nuclear weapon manage to defeat the invaders. However, in the process, we destroyed earth. Luckily human still manage to move to the moon of Saturn. In the process, human use some giant machine to, what I deduce, harvest water from earth. Having some remnants of the alien faction around as risk to destroy the water miners, they have drones to protect the machines. But who is to service and fix the drones? That is Jack's job prescription. He is supposed to be finishing his rotation on earth and return to the moon. However, he kept on having some repeating dream regarding one girl, bet it is not wet though. During one of the duty tour, he came across a crash landed space craft and found the girl of his dream. From then on, more secrets are revealed and things are not seems like they are. Prepare for a twist or two in the story which is rather nice. 



Tom Cruise is suited for the role, Olga Kurylenko is rather expressionless but still manage to pull her clueless survivor of crash character. Andrea Risenborough played her character well. You can forget the rest of the cast cause seems like their roles appeared more like an extra. That is the problem with bulk of this movie. It seems more like I am Legend or Castaway. It is Tom Cruise and Andrea, Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise and drone, Tom Cruise and nice CGI. It seems like a documentary of Tom Cruise stranded in a dessert. However, with the twist in the middle of the movie, it switched to Matrix mode. Not the action, just the revelations that things are not what they seems. Yup, in the end, the whole movie felt more like a romantic version of I am Legend meets Matrix. The action, is standard so nothing ground breaking here though the scenes from the movie makes nice wallpaper.



Does it work? At times the movie really drag. So much so there are some audience began to play with their handphone. For me, it did work. I will still forget the movie by next month, but at least in next few days, I would still recall the film. Not a classic, but entertaining enough to justify the ticket price. 


ratings: 3 half poink!
comments: bring some food to munch so when you feel bored, your hands and mouth can keep you awake. 

No comments:

Post a Comment