*/**** Image A+ Sound A- Extras B
starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurlylenko, Melissa Leo
screenplay by Joseph Kosinski and Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt
directed by Joseph Kosinski
by Walter Chaw If you’re going to see Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion, you should see it in IMAX. Oh, who’m I kidding? There’s no good way to see Kosinski’s sci-fi-lite follow-up to Tron: Legacy, starring Emperor Thetan Tom Cruise as a future-Jiffy Lube mechanic jetting around post-bellum Earth circa 2077, fixing automated drones programmed to kill alien “Scavs” that have taken over the empty planet. Following? It doesn’t matter. Via soulful voiceover, Cruise’s Jack Harper informs us that a war has decimated Earth and that all the surviving humans have fled to Titan (that’s a moon around Saturn, Jack explains), leaving behind only Jack and his lady-pal Vika (Andrea Riseborough) to tend to giant sea-water fusion engines that provide energy to our ragtag, fugitive fleet. No, it already doesn’t make much sense, except that it’s sort of like something L. Ron Hubbard would have written–but that’s gotta be a coincidence, right? Anyway, seems that Jack has built a special cabin in the woods despite Earth being uninhabitable due to the nuclear holocaust we unleashed to free ourselves of alien enslavement…or is it? Irradiated, that is. Earth, I mean. And what of these strange memories of the Empire State Building that memory-wiped Jack keeps having, where he and supermodel Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko exchange doe-eyes and sweet nothings? If you’ve seen any science-fiction film worth a crap in the last twenty years, you’ve already seen a better version of Oblivion, I promise you.
Among the awesome tidbits of Lawrence Wright’s Scientology exposé Going Clear is the part where it’s revealed that studio polling discovered Tom Cruise is sexually repugnant to women, meaning that if a Tom Cruise film had any hope of attracting a female audience, it had to resist showing Tom in bed. Oblivion breaks that cardinal rule twice, the second time doing one of those embarrassing “blowing curtains” cutaways. Imagining 51-year-old Tom banging 34-year-old Kurylenko, it’s impossible not to imagine 51-year-old Tom banging 34-year-old Katie Holmes. Seriously, it’s like Michael Jackson pulling a little boy out of the audience and singing “PYT” to him. I’ll forgive a lot–I really like Tom Cruise and Tom Cruise movies–but I need desperately not to be reminded of the exact aspect of him that makes about 99% of the population want to puke. Jack and Vika (short for “Victoria,” in the kind of depressing world where The Hunger Games is a thing) have been promised by “mission control” Sally (Melissa Leo) that they will complete their terrestrial assignment in a fortnight and then be spirited away to their mortal reward. Again, if you’ve ever seen a science-fiction film, you’ve seen this movie. Hell, if you’ve seen Oblivion‘s trailer, you already know that Jack will meet a Thunderdome’d-out Morgan Freeman as “Beech,” the leader of a group of troglodyte human survivors who have a TERRIBLE SECRET, one that explains Jack’s memories and the sudden appearance of his dream-girl, Julia (Kurylenko), in a labelled 2001 space container that doesn’t bear her real name for some goddamn reason.
Oblivion is packed with dumb, distracting, obfuscating moments, ranging from the wisdom of Jack dragging around a giant casket to strap onto his little flying machine to the unevenness of alien and future technology that allows for some miracles (advanced DNA trackers, for instance) but not others (the inability for said miracles to discern a final twist). A note here that the credits list a pair of twins as “Julia’s Child,” which I read for a long time as “Julia Child,” which would have been delightful. Oblivion has a lot of loud action moments that lack weight because we haven’t invested in any of the characters, plus a few arresting visuals that suggest the world’s most expensive adaptation of a Michael Whelan painting. Cruise-ites will be glad to see liberal usage of such Cruise-isms as Running Hard™, Being Descended on a Wire™, and Getting Facially Disfigured™; and true science-fiction fans will be…too smart to have wasted their time. You’ll all be glad to know, however, that in the future there’s still the soundtrack to The Big Chill–on vinyl, even; that there’s Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World,” meaning liberal arts and dormitories haven’t disappeared; and that people still pretend to read Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome. (Yeah, of the many, many movies of which this one is humiliatingly derivative, the most humiliating is Equilibrium.) Oblivion is a film of big ideas, none of which are its own. It’s not a prerequisite, certainly, that a movie be about something, but it would be nice. Really, all Oblivion ends up being is the one where Tom Cruise finally fights himself, placing it alongside monuments of genre cinema like Double Impact, Twin Dragons, The One, and The Parent Trap. Huzzah! Originally published: April 19, 2013.
THE BLU-RAY DISC
![Oblivion [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51PE66+LFVL._SY300_.jpg)
by Bill Chambers Oblivion is derivative and hollow, yes, but I gained a new appreciation for it as a handmade object through the making-of featurettes on Universal’s BD release. (Falling under the umbrella header of “Promise of a New World,” these segments run a combined total of 48 minutes and have been tersely titled “Destiny,” “Voyage,” “Combat,” “Illusion,” and “Harmony.”) For instance, the backdrop outside Tom Cruise’s apartment in the sky is not greenscreen, but rather an old-fashioned cyclorama spanning 42 feet and given a next-gen update via 38 synchronized HiDef projectors beaming footage shot in 4K on a mountain peak in Hawaii. The effect was astonishingly seamless and enabled the actors to reflect and refract the light from their surroundings in a totally organic way. The production also designed a full-scale bubbleship with all the bells and whistles–although it couldn’t fly, obviously (that’s what gimbals are for)–and sent Tommy, sans stunt double (the common refrain of any documentary about a Cruise actioner), careening down the ashy Icelandic landscape on a jerry-rigged motorcycle. In B-roll, we see him think fast by gracefully leaping to safety as the bike wipes out; he looks less lucky when a wire-drop deposits him on a hard floor with a plop that would gravely injure other men his age. Of course, Oblivion isn’t a Michel Gondry movie and does feature its fair share of CGI, which gets its due in “Combat” (about the Cruise-on-Cruise brawl) and especially “Illusion.” Nothing you haven’t heard before, though I did marvel at Digital Domain’s effects preparation now including land surveying! One thing I wish were elucidated is the reasoning behind F/X house Pixomodo digitally replacing Cruise in an early shot instead of compositing him into said shot. It seems a waste of resources, and an unnecessary invitation to scrutiny.
The fifth and final instalment, “Harmony,” throws the spotlight on composers M83, to whose music director Joseph Kosinski wrote the “graphic novel” on which Oblivion is based. Oh yeah, you’ll hear a lot of guff about this thing, unpublished and unfinished as far as anybody knows; I feel like you shouldn’t be allowed to put “based on the X by Y” in the credits if the X in question largely exists inside Y’s head. Still, Kosinski commissioned some pretty illustrations for it, and they, along with every sci-fi movie of the last 50 years, served as the basis for the picture’s production design. Last among the video-based extras is a selection of four HD deleted scenes, each approximately a minute in length. Nothing eventful here, save some foreshadowing of the miracle medikit doodad that comes out of nowhere to save a character’s life in the finished film.
As for that score, it’s presented in isolation from the rest of the mix in glorious 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, while another track houses a feature-length yakker from Kosinski and Cruise. This is my first time hearing Cruise in commentary mode or listening to him go on at length at all, really, and I’m not sure I expected him to be so low-key. Still, he’s a chatterbox, and predictably generous with praise for his collaborators–albeit in a way that can feel reflexively political. He correctly identifies co-star Andrea Riseborough as a “chameleon,” however: she’s all but unrecognizable from movie to movie. As for Oblivion itself, the 2.39:1, 1080p transfer, generously appointed 37 of the disc’s 50 gigabytes, is crisp and slick, rich in vivid pastel hues. While the Mac-store sleekness of the movie’s aesthetic will probably date it, it greases the transition to small-screen HD, and these days I’m grateful for an image that hasn’t been colour-timed into, er, oblivion. Photographed in HiDef, the picture is nonetheless cinematic, with a thin membrane of noise taking the place of grain in low-lit interiors. The attendant 7.1 DTS-HD MA track improves on what was for me a muddy-sounding theatrical experience, striking a better balance between the pulsating M83 cuts and general chaos of the set-pieces. Yet I was perhaps unfairly expecting foundation-threatening bass that never arrived, and Olga Kurylenko’s voice is distractingly dislocated and mousy. Maybe the problem is that I only have a 5.1 receiver. HiDef trailers for Furious 6, Despicable Me 2, Dead in Tombstone, and SyFy’s “Defiance” cue up on startup, while the packaging naturally supplements the Blu-ray with DVD and UV copies of Oblivion.
135 minutes; PG-13; 2.39:1 (1080p/MPEG-4); English 7.1 DTS-HD MA, English DVS 2.0, French DTS 5.1; English SDH, French, Spanish subtitles; BD-50 + DVD-9; Region-free; Universal
![Tron: Legacy/Tron: The Original Classic [2-Movie Collection] - Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray Disc + DVD + Digital Copy](https://filmfreakcentral.net/wp-content/plugins/contextual-related-posts/default.png "Tron: Legacy/Tron: The Original Classic [2-Movie Collection] - Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray Disc + DVD + Digital Copy")
Chuckled at the comments about the age discrepancy between Cruise and Kurylenko/Holmes … but, guys, age gaps in Hollyweird (in the movies and otherwise) ain’t nothin’ new by a long shot. Thirty-five-year-old Marilyn Monroe cozied up to 60-year-old Clark Gable (“The Misfits”); Jimmy Stewart at 46 romanced a 25-year-old Grace Kelly, then at 50 smooched another 25-er in Kim Novak; and of course in the ’50s and ’60s young Audrey Hepburn got matched with practically every 50-ish actor in Tinseltown. (Thanks to IMDB for the ages, btw.)
A good question to ask is, what does it take to make an on-screen relationship with an obvious age gap plausible, watchable and perhaps captivating instead of grotesque, ridiculous and laughable? (And while we’re at it, what’s behind Hollywood’s obsession with old men/young women relationships anyway?)
“what does it take to make an on-screen relationship with an obvious age gap plausible, watchable and perhaps captivating instead of grotesque, ridiculous and laughable?”
Ruth Gordon and a Cat Stevens soundtrack.
HA! HA! Ripping on a person’s religion is so edgy! You should pick on a Jewish person next! COMEDY GOLD! You are so hip.
Richard, to answer the question posed in your last paragraph: Because young women are hot, old women are gross, and Hollywood is run by men. This is not necessarily a bad thing; I would not like to see (or even imagine) the grizzled likes of Susan Sarandon banging Ryan Gosling. Yuck.
To quote Martin Mull, “When men get old, they look like Sean Connery. When women get old, they look like Sean Connery.”
Anyway, great review by Walter. I love the list of “Cruise-isms.” So true. He certainly enjoys running. I wonder why Cruise isn’t in awesome movies anymore. Why, for instance, is Matt Damon in the upcoming Elysium, a sci-fi epic which looks promising, and Cruise chose this one. Maybe he truly is, as many have said, a complete nutcase and getting worse with age–though I don’t think the multi-millionaire superstar deserves any sympathy just yet (at least not until he completely self-destructs and goes the Nicholas Cage straight-to-video route).
I’m also really sick of Morgan Freeman playing the sage/”magic negro.” When was the last time he stretched or did anything remotely interesting as an actor?
In response to mike, while I understand where you’re coming from I think the observations are both pointed and valid in this point, even if they were expressed in Walter’s increasingly inarticulate and curmudegeonly way (or as Maximillian might put it, like a “classhole.” And then “Like” all his reviews on Facebook). If the central conflict in this film was between memory and, well, oblivion, even if that memory is destined to be carried on in half-remembered rituals by others long after you are dead, there’s something about an infinite line of Tom Cruises that is unavoidably Scientologist in its design. Like Walter said, he finds Tom Cruise a likeable and capable actor, but when he’s reminded of all his personal foibles on screen he finds it unnerving. Well, this movie is destined to provoke those associations, even if by accident.
because mike, if he ripped on Jews, who would publish his books?
Great review as always Walter. But, I too am a little curious as to why the Cruise-Kurylenko pairing in particular curdles your milk of human kindness? This is pretty much de rigueur in Hollywood right? And Richard’s given some pretty good examples.
At least Cruise is in great shape for a 51-year old. Coulda been worse. We coulda been seeing beer-bellied, man-boobed Ray Winstone banging the luscious Hayley Atwell. In a toilet. (The Sweeney)
And as an Indian, let me tell you that when it comes to age-disparity in leading man to leading lady casting, Hollywood is a mere novice compared to the Indian film Industry (particularly the South Indian Film Industry) which routinely pairs men in their mid to late fifties with 21 year old women. And it’s not uncommon for these same 21 year olds, once they reach the decrepit age of 40 and above , to then be cast as mothers. Of the same heroes they once acted opposite as love interests.
why is the new filmfreak site worse than the old one?
In regards to the whole sex scene thing…
I think Cruise is starting to make movie choices based on how much he can show off his body. First he had a shirtless ledge scene in Mission Impossible 4, he spent all of Rock of Ages wearing only leather pants, and there’s a scene in Jack Reacher where he walks around shirtless while the lady lawyer stares goo-goo-eyed mesmerized at his pecs. I don’t remember him in his previous movies ever going to such lengths to show off his upper body and naked chest. Why start the obsession now?
Honestly, I think Tome Cruise is going through a midlife crisis and so he needs to be in movies where younger women find him not just attractive but the sexist stud ever. It’s the equivalent of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2. “Look how great I look for my age!” Yeah, OK, but so what? If it doesn’t serve the story and it’s just for vanity’s sake, then we’re back to Hollywood Ending (2002) where Woody Allen is lusted after by three women (Tea Leoni, Debra Messing, Tiffani Amber Thiessen) whose combined age is not much more than his own.
Forget that it’s sick and revolting. It’s also pretty embarrassing for all involved.
@mike
By “religion” I assume you mean “pathological crank cult invented as cash cow by hack science fiction writer”. Go google ‘xenu’ and be enlightened.
Alpha-narcissist Cruise is for me now a red flag on a movie. Minority Report and War of the Worlds proved that even when he starts off provoking your interest by playing a damaged or massively flawed character, by the end he’s pretty much contractually obliged to be wearing a halo. How I wish he’d played opposite the equally tiresome Travolta in Battlefield Earth….
Actually, if you haven’t seen the movie you may be surprised to discover that the sex scene with its ominously heavy synthesizer score is the best moment of the film and promises something *else* that the rest of the movie fails to deliver. How much more interesting would it be if he was comfortable living like that, but not really happy? If just there was something more devious about Vicka character. The movie steals from STAR WARS, THE MATRIX, WALL-E, PLANET OF THE APES, and most depressingly MOON; it could have only helped if they stole that plot point from TOTAL RECALL as well.
That’s the biggest crime the film perpetrates Alex. It decides its going to steal the most essential elements from the best Sci-fi films, and then does absolutely nothing inventive or interesting with any of them. This film is an example of what happens when you let someone who is essentially an interesting set designer write and direct a movie. Just like the incomprehensible Manila sequence in ‘Bourne Legacy’ is what happens when you let a stunt coordinator direct the end of an action movie. Also agree the story is screaming for the Sharon Stone in ‘Total Recall’ treatment. This movie is a shiny, timid, bore.
“Among the awesome tidbits of Lawrence Wright’s Scientology exposé Going Clear is the part where it’s revealed that studio polling discovered Tom Cruise is sexually repugnant to women, meaning that if a Tom Cruise film had any hope of attracting a female audience, it had to resist showing Tom in bed.”
Where was this? Both me and my girlfriend read Going Clear and neither of us remember this part.