Alternative Plot; Tom Cruise friendly

Rating: 8/10 (2 February 2014)

60 years ago, the Earth was attacked. We won the war but reduced the planet to Birmingham, or Wansworth, or Stoke on Trent, maybe. We're the mop up crew. It's hard work mopping an entire planet. Everyone else is on Titan. I believe that. Just as I believe L. Ron Hubbard was an alien overlord and you can't tell the difference between Stork and butter. I believe that.
Is it possible to miss a place you've never filmed in, a role you were different in, a time you've never lived without the aid of greenscreen? We won the war, but now we have to help giant Remington shavers suck up sea water: are the drugs they give us legal, or what? Our commander is Sally, who bears a striking vocal resemblance to Hal 9000, and who we have never seen, but still believe her home spun southern drawl. Victoria and I are obviously morons. Or clones. Or both.
Yesterday, a man who looks like an older version of Morpheus from the Matrix, but sounds suspiciously like the wise old bird from the Shawshank Redemption told me everything I knew was nonsense. I told him not to be so rude about scientology. Then I went to service a droid at a calcified football stadium. Victoria tells me that's what twentieth century Leeds looked like. On a good day.
When I met the women that I later learned was my original clone's wife, sixty years ago, before the world fell to the Tet, or the Scavs, or the mongs, I said: Julia, I'm with you, and I don't know your name; I'm dreaming but it feels real. Like a memory of a dream of a fantasy of a Philip K. Dick short story. What the hell's that about? I took Vika flowers. She hated them. I cultivated the last flowers on Earth for all she knew, and she preferred vacuum packed rations. You can't please some people.
But after all I have learned, I realised that everything I knew wasn't real. I wasn't real. Victoria wasn't real. Sally's accent wasn't real. And despite being beaten up by myself to save money on stuntmen, I went in search of the house he built. He's a lousy builder. Did he use a spirit level? I think not. I know that, because I know him. Because I am him. I am Tom Cruise, and I am home. Playing the same part I play in every single movie I've ever been in. Clipped, nondescript, slightly odd, beating up full sized men and standing in the shadow of my leading ladies. Standing in the shadow of Legoland cars. We are an effective team.
Horatius said: "How can a man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods?" I said: "In a rocking chair, aged ninety, drinking beer."