Big budget for a simple plot, but effective

Rating: 8/10 (18 April 2013)

There are a lot of good things going for this film: the special effects are flawless, the actors play well, the production values are high. Even the script is not the usual mess that US films have made us be used to. If there is a problem with Oblivion, it is that it is a too good a movie for its own story.
OK, there is a twist, somewhere, but you need to not watch the trailer and be rather unconcerned to not see it miles ahead. There are action scenes, but not that many, so you can't go calling it an action film that doesn't need a story. Nor is the story badly written. It just feels so like one of the episodes of Outer Limits that it makes one uneasy while watching. Like something is missing, but you can't place your finger on it. And while it works on delivering the predictable finale, it starts losing its consistency and gaining logic holes that are the hallmark of careful work that was rushed at the end.
In a way, it's a very expensive play. If you ignore the extras and the few scenes in which Jamie Lannister still has a hand, there are five actors in total. Some might multiply this with 50 or even 1000, but the actual actors are just five :)
So my conclusion is that it was an entertaining film, with full control over the vertical and the horizontal, but less over depth of story. It reached a sort of uncanny valley for which production values are so disproportionately high compared to the complexity of the story that is made me uneasy.