Tom Cruise and this movie are an effective team, Sally. It's another day in paradise

Rating: 7/10 (24 July 2013)

The best way to describe Oblivion is the Modern Day 1968's 2001 Space Odyssey. It's a movie that really makes you think, so it's a great Sci-fiction movie. I think a lot of critics are bashing it because the fact that Tom Cruise is a scientologist, and the film mimics a bit of their faith. In my opinion, I can care less about Tom Cruise's personal life, as long as the movie he is starting in is good. I'm not a huge Tom Cruise fan but when he hit all the right notes and his acting is great, it makes a good movie. Still, it's wasn't a big attempt into character acting; it was Tom Cruise acting like Tom Cruise. Tom plays Tech 49 Jack Harper, one of the last drone repairmen stationed on a nuclear wasted Earth in the year 2077 who works for Sally (Melissa Leo), his mission commander, who is stationed on the "Tet," a massive tetrahedral space station above Earth. The planet was nearly destroyed sixty years earlier, during a nuclear war against an alien race known as Scavengers or Scavs for short where the Scavs destroyed the moon, causing massive earthquakes and tsunamis. He starts to question his assigned when a pre-war spacecraft crash on the planet and Jack finds a survivor name Julia (Olga Kurylenko) who tells him a different story then what he is supposed to believe. I just couldn't get interest in Olga's acting in this film. Her thin Russian accent was bothering me. Without spoiling much away, I have to say that the film is full of twists to the point, I thought I was watching a better version of M. Night Shyamalan's 2013's After Earth. Plus, all the twist do make sense in the end. It's not a prediction movie, but you have to accept what you got when you finally get to the bottom of the rabbit hole. I do hate the 1996's Independence Day like ending. I do question, what happen when the other Techs end up finding Julia after the ending. The trailer doesn't do this movie justice. This post-apocalyptic science fiction film is based on Director Joseph Kosinski's Radical Comics-edited unpublished graphic novel of the same name, but the movie felt like I said before, 2001 Space Odyssey. Not only that, but I also have to say 1972's Solaris and 2011's Another Earth, because both films deal with thoughts of motivation, the characters beliefs and memories, and reconciling what was lost with an opportunity for a second chance. In Oblivion, Jack is haunted by a woman, from a past that he did not live, and force to confront it. While at the same time, he is trying so hard to keep it away so that his lover Victoria "Vica" Olsen (Andrea Riseborough) who work with him as a team to maintain the autonomous drones can leave the planet and join the others in Titan. I love Andrea Riseborough in this role, not only is she beautiful, but the way she acts is both chilling and heart-broken. It's sad what ends up with her character in the end. Things get more complex for Jack when he also meets a 1999's Matrix's Morpheus type character Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman), another survivor who tells him that what can describe as this movie version of 'the cake is a lie' by urging him to seek the truth in the so-called "radiation zone" that Jack is forbidden to enter. What he find is shocking. I was pretty impress. I do like the visual effects in the movie. It's beautiful. Too bad, the movie stays too much on the remains of the northeastern United States, I would have love to see more of this world. The way, the director shot the clouds, and landscape is amazing to watch. If you had the option to watch it in 3D or IMAX. Do so, the sound & visuals are breath taking. Deserves numerous viewings there. The soundtrack by M83, Anthony Gonzalez and Joseph Trapane sets the mood. I listened all the 30 tracks of the soundtrack, and I gotta says the soundtrack itself is the truly masterpieces. Daft Punk did a really nice job as well. There are some faults in the film, don't get me wrong, but some of these critics are deeply wrong. I think a lot of people didn't understand what was going on, or missed key points in the plot. I think a lot of critics think it's ripping off a lot of Sci-fiction films. In my opinion, it's playing tribute to them, while also using creative something new out of old ideas. I'm willing to buy a number of things for the sake of narrative, but one thing that bug me about the film is the lack of chemistry moments between Jack and Julia. I felt more for Victoria and Jack then them. I felt the ending where Julia and 'Jack' reunited was a bit of a cop out. It wasn't needed and should had been cut. It was very weak setup for one lame predictable final twist. Overall: I found the movie entertaining and liked it quite a bit, but it has the slight un-originality that will keep it from being great. Worth checking out in my opinion. Will recommend this to friends that like science fiction movies, good fun.