Cruise-Helmed Generic Sci-Fi That's More Concerned with Impressive Visuals Than Fresh Thoughts

Rating: 6/10 (9 August 2013)

Tom Cruise plays the last man on Earth, a high-tech janitor of sorts who's left to mind the planet's robotic chaperones while the rest of the species lives it up on one of Saturn's moons. It's slow, predictable and riddled with holes, but the production's cache of slick, attractive future tech and constant visual revelations make for excellent diversions. Cruise's sleekly designed equipment is a real science fiction goldmine, visionary in the same sense as Minority Report's giant touch-screen UIs, and the first hour is an outstanding lesson in world-building. The plot eventually falls into too many Cruise / mainstream Hollywood pitfalls, though, and borrows too liberally from other films. Duncan Jones's excellent Moon, in particular, is robbed of all but its subtlety, performances and locale. Still, such faults are hardly surprising by this point and if you were anticipating something more... well, maybe an adjustment in expectations is in order. Perfectly acceptable as a conceptual exercise, but make sure you swallow that grain of salt before viewing.