Film Review: "Oblivion" is Mind Over Splatter

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 20 April 2013 09:29

Written by Matt Oakes

"Oblivion"
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Starring Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Sci-Fi/Action/Mystery
126 Mins
PG-13

For a seemingly effects-driven spectacle, Oblivion is a quiet and patient film that's more drawn to mind games than an all-out brawl. If you're expecting a guns-blazing, us-vs-them actioner, save yourself the ticket price and skip out on this one. However, if you're willing to engage in a beautifully realized, if somewhat retreat, cerebral sci-fi flick, be sure to catch it while it's still in theaters.

Tom Cruise plays Jack, a drone technician living and working on the now-abandoned Earth. Pixar fans will no doubt find comparisons with Andrew Stanton’s character, Wall-E as he’s tasked with the challenge of cleaning up the smoldering ashes of our ruined planet, after a cloaked alien race destroyed the moon and invaded.  Like Wall-E, Jack even discovers a rare plant but instead of putting it in a shoe, he plops it in a tin can and presents it to fellow Earthling and girlfriend-thing Victoria (Andrea Riseborough).

As Jack's tenure as a technician runs to a close, he gets closer to moving to Titan -Saturn's largest moon, where all his fellow humans have already relocated to. Ever the curious one, Jack discovers a crash-landing which holds a time-frozen Julia (Olga Kurylenko) who opens up a world of secrets into his memory-wiped past.

Knocking on Cruise has become something of a pastime for America but I stand behind him as a man with massive talent. Not only does he do all of his own stunts (even the ones which would likely kill him) but he always brings his A-game. Sure, his action star roles often resemble each other but he offers enough variation while still preserving his distinct persona and has created a formula that really works. His role here just goes to prove why Cruise is such a household name. Sure, this is totally within his comfort zone but the man knows exactly what to do in a movie like this and hits all the notes perfectly. Without a weathered star like Cruise to dominate the vast majority of the screen time, it might not have been as captivating minute-to-minute and certainly wouldn't have the same pull with mainstream audiences.

Outside of Cruise, most of the other performances are acceptable but hardly noteworthy. Both Kurylenko and Riseborough play apt female supporting bits but neither seem to have had quite  enough pulp in their character to squeeze a satisfying juice from. Morgan Freeman is definitely being overplayed on the marketing side of the equation as he probably only has about five to ten minutes of screen time. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones (Jaime Lannister) pop up as Freeman's partner in the film although his role was equally small. This is Cruise's ballgame and there is no denying that he alone shoulders the bulk of the film - hardly a shocker with a leading man like him.

Where Oblivion did surprise me was in its unhurried pacing. The set pieces and action scenes actually service the narrative rather than the other way around. Instead of charging ahead, full on, towards the steady throb of endless action sequences, the film takes its careful time to develop the world and its two (and then three) inhabitants. Without the tired scramble from one shoot-out to the next - something that has come to define the blockbuster sci-fi genre of late - Oblivion works as a slowly unwrapped question mark leading down an increasingly heady rabbit-hole.

Lucky for us, that rabbit-hole is laid out amongst some truly stunning and yet adequately restrained visual effects that really make this post-apocalyptic world pop. Less-is-more seems to have been adopted by the effects team as they offer a view of a world disappearing into itself rather than imploding in your face. Much like the powerful image of the Statue of Liberty's arm rising from the sand that truncates the original Planet of the Apes, Oblivion relies on the power of suggestion and visual simplicity to create its landscape of desolation and the accompanying melancholic tone.

Having transitioned from Tron: Legacy to Oblivion, director Joseph Kosinski has made great leaps as both a storyteller and filmmaker - genuinely appearing to have learned from his previous missteps. The visual wizardry that made Tron: Legacy watchable is still as potent if not more so here but Kosinski accomplishes so much more without everything else being so loud and ultimately shallow. Turning it down from eleven makes the ordeal not only more bearable, it makes it more inviting to those willing to invest themselves. Again, for those of you wanting things to pop out in your face and the knowledge that you'll only have to wait mere minutes for the next big shootout...this is not the film for you.

With so much technical mastery at his disposal, Kosinski earns points by not overextending and brazenly grabbing for the "oohs" and "ahhs." I'd take this simplified spectacle over cluttered CGI blowouts any day. It is in this simplification that you realize that the scope of a sci-fi film can still be epic without all the flashy glitz trying to distract us from its lack of backbone. By being a student of restraint, Kosinski has made a much grander film than his previous one and one that doesn't have to compete with itself for your attention.

Oblivion has the DNA of The Matrix, Alien, Wall-E, Terminator and especially Duncan Jones' Moon and while it's hard to ignore the influence that those films had on Oblivion, Kosinski could have taken his cues from worse places. The cautionary tales of nuclear war and fear of advancing technology have become staples to the sci-fi diet so much of the film feels like familiar territory. This does not mean that it's not worth our attention though. With more mature direction from Kosinski, a skilled star in Cruise, beautiful effects work, and a bold, if retread, narrative, Oblivion is exactly the type of heady popcorn flick the sci-fi genre needs.