Similar to 'The Island', just not as good

Rating: 7/10 (3 November 2013)

Okay, I'm going to be as concise as I can.. 'Oblivion' had really high potential when i first heard about its release, yet i don't think it was completely 'finessed' in its execution. Firstly, I really liked the movie's portrayal of creating a futuristic post-apocalyptic world which I thought looked really striking and impressive. Also, I didn't see the revelation coming when Jack discovers that Julia is his wife, there is no civilization on Titan and that Jack is a mere pawn, of many pawns being "bred" to supervise the extraction of Earth's remaining resources and repair drones. However that's all i can really recall that surprised or impressed me.
From a critical perspective, I didn't feel like I could really relate to any of the characters in the film, not even the protagonist Jack, which isn't very satisfying as the viewer. In addition, I didn't feel like Beech and the survivors got enough screen-time to really make me feel some sort of attachment to their characters. For example, I didn't feel sympathetic when the drones attacked the survivors' base and nearly wiped everybody out, which I got the sense that I was meant to feel some sort of sympathy there, but because I didn't get to see much of Beech or his group I couldn't force myself to feel this way. Similarly, when Jack and Beech destroy the Tet (the massive space station) at the end of the film, I didn't really feel fulfilled or reverent for the characters. I mean I understand they had to do what they had to do but if the film just spent more time developing their characters further I would have felt more satisfied with the ending. This leads me to recapitulate that there wasn't all that much character development by the end of the film; none of the characters changed much from the beginning of the movie. It just felt like an apocalyptic-adaption of the movie 'The Island' when you discover that Jack and Victoria are clones, just 'Oblivion' wasn't as good. I didn't feel any sentimental connection with the characters, and i think that if they had dedicated more time with dialogue between the characters for growth the movie would have been more potent.
In conclusion though, the movie wasn't horrible, yet it wasn't amazing. It has its pros and cons but for every pro, there are two cons, which held the movie back. It's worth watching but there's no need for haste.