Ugh... generic big studio property. Bit of a downer — average at best and yawn worthy at times

Rating: 4/10 (24 April 2013)

Joseph Kosinski's follow-up to his 2010 film Tron: Legacy (which I really enjoyed); is a stunning and eargasmic feast for those who like expensive effects. For everybody else, overall treatment of this science fiction mystery is dull and uninspiring.
I'll do without PC geek speak and use layman language.
The time is 2077 and decades earlier, an attack by aliens known as "Scavengers" rendered our planet uninhabitable. So human beings relocate to a space station in Titan, and send machines back here to extract whatever natural resources are left. The plot in Oblivion involves Jack (not Reacher), an engineer stationed here to repair and maintain robots that patrol the bosoms of Mother Earth. Now, the main objective of these robots (aka "Drones") is terminate any leftover "Scavs" that may threaten the human outfit.
Paired with icy communications officer and girlfriend Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), Jack also provides tech support to the extraction machines. They have two more weeks before the mission completes, but massive explosions happen one day and Jack uncovers heinous truth.
At the risk of spoiling everything, the events that follow are devastatingly predictable and a paste-up of elements from the following genre titles:
1) Total Recall — memory wipe and restoration of a romantic past with flashes of cheesy nostalgia in NYC with female astronaut Julia (Olga Kurylenko)
2) I, Robot — conspiracies leading up to a showdown with omnipotent A.I. villain, Sally (Melissa Leo)
3) The Matrix — no prize for guessing who's the chosen one after Jack's encounter with guerrilla leader of the human resistance, Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman)
Now for the tangible: territorial space and atmosphere created by DP Claudio Miranda, is reminiscent of the vastness seen in Prometheus — a disappointment considering his innovative photography n in earlier project, Life of Pi. Character and set designs also evoke traces of kinetics found in 2001 Space Odyssey and Wall-E. Toss airborne battles and cloning tragedies in the mix; essentially, Oblivion is a generic big studio property screaming sentiments about drone wars and global warming.
It has the epic looks and formalist style of something very impressive. But archetypal narrative and limited range in acting (more often seen than felt) wrecked an otherwise bona fide of a blockbuster I was led into expecting. Bit of a downer — average at best and yawn worthy at times, though not intolerable.
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