Film noir as science fiction

Rating: 8/10 (14 April 2013)

This film seems to be attracting a lot of criticism on the basis of similarities to other science fiction films. The references (and sometimes they are clearly deliberate) did not particularly concern me. I might have felt differently if it had been done badly but for the most part it was done well. Why should it matter? After all you don't hear many criticisms of other genres along these lines. A film wouldn't be much of a film noir if it didn't have a doomed protagonist, plot twists, cops, private eyes etc. In fact Oblivion strikes me as a good candidate for sharing the DNA of film noir and as being as good a mystery as it is a reworking of some well-known science fiction tropes.
This isn't a ground breaking film and it probably won't make anyone's top ten SF films but it is certainly above average and well worth a visit to the cinema to see on a big screen. Visually it is very striking and quite beautiful to watch. The only visual aspect that disappointed me was the obvious CGI in the shots of the bike being driven over vast tracks of land or ruins (I rewatched Dark Knight Rises the other night and you can see the same problem with Catwoman driving Batman's fat-tyred bike). The CGI is otherwise as good as you will see anywhere and doesn't rely on gimmicks like 3D.
The tone of this film reminds me of Solaris - Tarkovskiy's version not the snoozefest that Soderbergh directed. Tom Cruise, and we as the audience, are being invited to grapple with some interesting philosophical questions here. We can ignore them and just take this as a fun film if we like but this film encouraged me to consider some quite deep questions of identity. I've seen commentary that Oblivion is too smart for some moviegoers and too dumb for others. For me the balance between a good-looking, exciting film and something with interesting questions to ask was just right.