An Extended, Overlong Homage to '70s Sci-Fi Films.

Rating: 6/10 (4 May 2013)

"Oblivion" (2013), directed by Joseph Kosinski, who previously made "Tron: Legacy" (2010), is an extended homage to science fiction films in the 1970s. The script, by Kosinksi and Oscar-winner William Monahan with uncredited touch-ups by Michael Arndt, appears to be an amalgam of a disparate batch of films, from "Logan's Run" (1976) and "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) to "Solaris" (1972) and "Planet of the Apes" (1968). This similarity with sci-fi films of the past paradoxically is both its major strength and weakness.
In reinvention of iconic scenes, such as black and white flashbacks to New York echoing Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys", its use of design with immaculate white, angular flying Bubble Ships and living quarters, we are given some stunningly beautiful, perfectly envisioned concepts. Claudio Miranda, who won the Academy Award for "Life of Pi" (2012), shoots the landscapes on location in Iceland, breathtakingly utilising the widescreen to maximum effect.
However, films are more than a collection of attractive shots edited together; they have plot, characters, direction. For a futuristic film, the ideas element is all the more prescient and this is where "Oblivion" falters. Too little is new or resembling originality. Anyone well-versed in cinema will see where the twists are coming and none of the characters, despite a good cast including Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko and Morgan Freeman, connect and engage. Cruise's character in particular doesn't work well enough; the writing is too generic and not insightful enough, a disaster when the film pivots around him.
Kosinski's direction displays his variable talent, his penchant for framing sequences to best effect and building up a vivid sense of geography. Yet the people in his shots flounder, the character "moments" not hiding his disinterest compounded by the story's weaknesses. Pacing too is an issue with Kosinski and his editor Richard Francis-Bruce struggling to find a proper rhythm to the film. Some scenes are much too long, others are seemingly abandoned, meaning that even at a mere two hours long, the movie feels a drawn out affair.
If "Oblivion" is imperfect, when it does work, Kosinksi is shown to be a director who has skill, can direct complex technical scenes and has a kinetic way with action. It is his abandonment of actors, intended or not, that undercuts his efforts. The film finally, despite looking very good, is less than the sum of its parts.