Oblivion (2013)

Oblivion (2013)

Oblivion is Tom Cruise’s latest action movie, at least I think it is.  He seems to poop out action flicks like birds poop on nice cars.  Upon seeing the trailer I yelled “Another generic Tom Cruise action movie, sign me up!”   Just kidding, I gave it almost as much attention as I give my Wii console.  Inevitably, it showed up on my recommended films list on IMDB, so I decided to give it a shot.  Here’s what I thought.

The Plot

The year is 2077.  The moon has been destroyed by a rogue alien species known as the Scavs.  After the slew of natural disasters directly caused by the destruction of the moon, the Scavs have moved onto earth, and began a war with the humans, presumably for resources.  The Scavs prove to be a lethal foe.  Left with no choice the humans launch their nukes, effectively destroying what was left of the planet and rendering it extremely radioactive and inhospitable.  The remaining human’s evacuate Earth to live temporarily on the massive space station orbiting the planet known as Tet.  After a while the humans begin to colonize Saturn’s largest moon Titan.  After the events that transpired, all surviving humans were subject to a mandatory memory wipe.

Nothing fishy about that at all

Jack Reacher Jack Harper (played by Tom Cruise) is one of the last humans remaining on earth.  He and his partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are responsible for harvesting Earth’s remaining resources and maintaining the drones that patrol the desolate planet.  They live together in a pristine white tower that rests above the clouds, overlooking the vast desert landscape below.  They work under strict regulations and are constantly under scrutiny as to whether they are an effective team by Sally, the government official assigned to give them their orders.  Jack is content with his job, though he often has dreams about what Earth was like before the attack including flash memories of a woman he’s never met.  He dismisses them nothing more than dreams, as the memory wipe would make it impossible for them to be actual memories.

One morning, Jack heads out to investigate a downed drone and finds that it was attacked by a party of Scavs that still roam Earth.  Jack follows a lead and ends up in a hole in the ground surrounded by Scavs.  With the help of one of his drones, Jack is able to escape, but not before finding a book in the rubble.  He also finds a Scav beacon, sending out some coordinates into space.

The fuck is this shit?

After surviving his encounter, Jack decides he needs to relax.  Avoiding the clearly identified Radiation zones, he heads to the lush green patch of beautiful lake front property where he likes to kick back (he is obviously breaking the strict regulations he is under).  His cabin is filled with remnants of the old world, and I mean a lot older than 2014.  This dude still rocks vinyl records in 2077, talk about old school.  He is out relaxing in his front yard when he sees a ship rocketing towards earth.  His boss Sally demands that he let the drones take care of the crash site, but he decides to investigate the site anyway, which happened to be on the exact coordinates that were being transmitted from the Scav beacon.  Among the wreckage are several life forms, all humans in cryo sleep.  Before long the drones swoop in and start mowing down the survivors.  Jack manages to save only one of the survivors, a female named Julia, who he takes back to his tower.  We immediately recognise her as the girl from his wet dreams. 

Julia claims to have been in cyro sleep for over 60 years, and that she will tell Jack everything about her mission, but only if they go back to the crash site and recover a recording.  Jack, ignoring Victoria’s protests, takes Julia back to the crash site, only to be ambushed by Scavs.  Oh no!

***SPOILERS*** Don’t read on unless you’ve seen the film.

Surprise, the Scavs turn out to be humans.  I was very unsurprised by this, and even less surprised to find that their leader is Morgan Freeman, he seems the obvious choice to me.   The Scavs claim to be freedom fighters, rebelling against Tet.  They claim to know the truth behind everything that has happened, including the memory wipes.  They will allow Jack to learn the secrets for his help in their plot to destroy Tet using a nuke and a scavenged drone.  Will Jack be swayed by the Scavs to turn his back on everything he believed in? 

My Take

This film actually exceeded my expectations.  I’ll start with the positives.  I really liked the later plot twists, even though I saw them coming.  This story, though a bit predictable, was a good addition to the growing number of apocalypse themed movies.  It reminded me a lot of The Island because of the clones discovering what they are, leading them to question everything they know.  When Jack discovers that the “Radiation Zones” are actually just other plots of lands being guarded by other Jacks, it felt fulfilling and right, probably because we were all already extremely suspicious of what the hell was going on.  The storyline was good, and though it was a bit confusing at first, it ties up nicely at the end.  I liked the performances of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Morgan Freeman as the Scav leaders.  I also thought the scenery was beautiful and stunning, especially the scenes revolving around the impressive superstructure Tet. 

Now the negatives:  I wasn’t impressed with Tom Cruise’s performance as Jack.  I thought that if they could have cast a lesser known actor to play Jack’s part then this film would have had a more unique feel to it, making it stand out more.  The character of Jack Harper will be just another Tom Cruise character that blends into all of his others. 

Although he deserved an award for his character in Tropic Thunder

The plot of this story absolutely screams conspiracy/cover up.  You know that the government, or whoever is in charge, is hiding something major.  The mandatory memory wipe immediately lets you know that something fishy is going on.  Jack’s preference for old things (old relative to 2013, not even 2077) also informs us that he must have been flash frozen from our generation.  If he really was just a 40 something man living in 2077, how would he know anything about vinyl records, books, football, fishing or anything else from before the invasion.  He listens to old music from the 80’s.  In 2077, Skrillex and Miley Cyrus will be the classics that old people fondly remember (as absolutely fucked up as that sounds).

The Scavs couldn’t be any more obviously human.  They put on some cool Darth Vader helmets, but they are still clearly not an advanced alien species.

Do you see a face?  It must be aliens!!

The biggest disappointment for me was the final battle scene.   Jack manages to get inside Tet with the bomb in tow, and Sally just lets him in.  Sally has ample opportunities to blast Jack out of the sky and replace him with another Jack, easy as pie, but she doesn’t even try for some reason.  She even warns Jack that she knows he’s lying, but still does nothing.  When Jack reveals that he has a bomb with him, Sally, Who turns out to be an alien floating triangle thing, doesn’t even order the drones to attack.  She just takes it like a bitch and lets Jack get the last word and blow them all to Oblivion!  A very anticlimactic ending if you ask me, but it did tie up the story nicely.

The Verdict

This film has elements of good and bad.  It is, as I alluded to earlier, just another Tom Cruise action movie, this time in space.   It’s decent, but not good enough to become a classic.  It will be washed down by the overflow of big budget films that are coming down the pipeline, and in a couple years most people will barely remember this flick.  That being said, it is a decent futuristic action movie that can be entertaining, and the story will hold some value for Sci-fi fans.

6.8/10