A beautiful and sophisticated sic-fi blockbuster, with a hint of blandness...

Rating: 6/10 (5 May 2013)

Referencing to the Tom Cruise canon, Oblivion is a stronger effort than Jack Reacher. Mr. Cruise can still make taking down the bad guys look cool, however this is not his finest hour yet it is far from his worst.
Oblivion has an eerie and beautiful feeling in regards to the scenery and visuals. The whole production design was sophisticated and had a crisp feel to it. Overall however, I feel that Oblivion had the potential to be a strong outing for Joseph Kosinski yet the third act did not deliver. The film starts out as a simplistic and imposing, Jack Harper (Cruise) feels a strange connection with planet earth and has doubts about migrating to Titan with Victoria (Riseborough) How the film dealt with Harper's connection with a planet lost from the grasp of hope and life allowed me to engage with the film. Yet, the second half of the film felt like it escalated at a quite rapid pace and the conclusion felt slightly rushed. Oblivion should have stayed with its personal and raw approach rather than levelling it up to a hashed conclusion.
The action is not being criticised, but it should have been dealt with a more steady pace. Apart from that, Oblivion is a decent sic-fi which does provide some form of excitement. Focusing on the positives, the soundtrack gave Oblivion a sense of depth and the potential for the film to be epic.
Oblivion is far from a disaster, it's just failed to reach for the heights of an epic sic-fi blockbuster.