Oblivion

Over the past few days I’ve heard the same story about Oblivion from many different critics: Fantastic first half followed by a lackluster second half.  So, for my first trip to the theaters with this blog, I decided to check Oblivion out for myself.

Coming to this movie I wasn’t sure what to expect.  The concept looked cool, and the visuals were great judging from the trailers, but I never really trust movies the Tom Cruise is in.  I’m saying Tom Cruise is a bad actor, on the contrary I enjoy most of his work, but some of his movies blow.  Let’s be honest.  Take Knight and Day for example, loved his character, but found the movie pretty boring.  On the other hand, he’s done some fantastic movies: Top Gun, Collateral, Mission Impossible.  When it comes down to Tom Cruise, I just never know.  To me, this movie encapsulates all of my feelings about Tom Cruise’s career.  Oblivion is both good and bad, but overall enjoyable.

As promised, this movie starts strong.  We’re introduced to this future Earth that was attacked by aliens called Scavengers…I think.  Throughout the movie they’re referred to as “scavengers,” but then you find out the scavengers are…you know what?  Screw it. They’re scavengers.  Anyway, they blew up our moon (the debris of the moon is starting to form a ring around the Earth which creates one of my favorite visuals in the movie) which causes massive earthquakes and tsunamis to wipe out most of our population.  Then they sent in their ground troops to finish us off.  In a last ditch effort to stop them the humans use nuclear weapons to win the war which leaves most of the planet uninhabitable.  Needing a new place to live humans built a humongous space station called the Tet that hovers over Earth’s surface and acts as a platform for sending surviving humans to Titan, Saturn’s moon, where the human race now lives.  Jack Harper and Victoria Olson work as a team, technician and communications officer respectively, to maintain the drones that protect the power generators, they collect energy from Earth’s oceans for the colony on Titan, from the scavengers that remain on Earth’s surface.  All of this is set up with a voice-over from Jack Harper at the beginning of the movie.  Talk about an impressive beginning to a story.

The mysteries that crop up at the beginning of the movie drive the first half.  What’s Jack Harper’s past?  (Jack and Victoria were required to have their memories wiped when they took the job.)  Who is the woman in Jack’s dreams?  What happened to the missing drone?  There are more, but I don’t want to spoil the fun for people who haven’t seen the movie.  The point is, I was really digging this movie.  Then the second half, while a logical and enjoyable continuation of the story, seemed predictable and shallow.  I guessed one of the biggest twists in the movie within the first 10 minutes. 

SPOILERS!

Jack and Victoria are clones.

SPOILERS OVER.

That being said, I still really enjoyed this movie even though it devolved into something predictable.  If I had a star system I would give it 3.5 out of 5.

SPOILERS!

Okay, let’s talk spoilers.  I want to discuss some inconsistencies.

1.    When Jack is flying to his cabin at the beginning of the movie, why did Victoria ask where he was going?  He’s obviously been there tons of times; he built a cabin for Christ’s sake.  Sure, when he enters the canyon where he’s built his cabin Victoria can’t see him on their G.P.S. (or whatever the aliens use to track Jack’s craft), but she would’ve seen him disappearing off the radar in that area enough times she would’ve asked him sooner.  Doesn’t make sense.

2.    How did Malcolm Beech call down The Odyssey by broadcasting coordinates into space?  Was the Odyssey just floating around waiting for coordinates to land?  If so, how would Malcolm know this?  The humans don’t exactly have a bunch of technology.  How did he get this information?

3.    Supposing Malcolm found out how to call down the Odyssey, and he knew Jack’s wife was onboard (which I’m assuming was his main reason for calling the ship down in the first place.)  why did he act surprised when she introduced herself as Jack’s wife?  I guess if he didn’t know Jack’s wife was onboard the ship he was hoping the ship itself would jog his memory and Jack’s wife was just a happy accident, but if he knew how to call the ship down from space I figure he would probably have access to a roster of who was onboard.

Other than those qualms and the over use of common sci-fi tropes (i.e. Jack and Victoria being clones and the destruction of the mother ship finishing the smaller drones) I enjoyed this film.  The cinematography was beautiful and the action was fun.  I’ll probably watch it again.  By the way, one of the best one liners before a character kills the main villain: “fuck you, Sally.”

Also, what was with the blatant rip off of HAL 9000?  Fuck you Sally, indeed.