Oblivion (Film) Review

Oblivion

Released: 19th April 2013
RRP: TBC
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 125

Visually striking but thinly scripted, Oblivion benefits greatly from its strong production values and an excellent performance from Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise stars in Oblivion, an original and groundbreaking cinematic event from the visionary director of TRON: Legacy and producers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On a spectacular future Earth that has evolved beyond recognition, one man's confrontation with the past will lead him on a journey of redemption and discovery as he battles to save mankind. 2077: Jack Harper (Cruise) serves as a security repairmen stationed on an evacuated Earth. Part of a massive operation to extract vital resources after decades of war with a terrifying alien threat who still scavenges what's left of our planet, Jack's mission is almost complete. In a matter of two weeks, he will join the remaining survivors on a lunar colony far from the war-torn world he has long called home. Living in and patrolling the breathtaking skies from thousands of feet above, Jack's soaring existence is brought crashing down after he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft. Drawn to Jack through a connection that transcends logic, her arrival triggers a chain of events that forces him to question everything he thought he knew. With a reality that is shattered as he discovers shocking truths that connect him to Earth of the past, Jack will be pushed to a heroism he didn't know he contained within. The fate of humanity now rests solely in the hands of a man who believed our world was soon to be lost forever. (c)Universal

Anthony Lane (New Yorker) said:
"Feels ever more grounded and stuck ..."

David Edelstein (Vulture) said:
"Was Cruise trying to beat out fellow Scientologist John Travolta for the honor of starring in the dumbest sci-fi epic ever?"

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (Chicago Sun-Times) said:
"If nothing else, "Oblivion" will go down in film history as the movie where Tom Cruise pilots a white, sperm-shaped craft into a giant space uterus."

Richard Roeper (Richard Roeper.com) said:
"This is the sci-fi movie equivalent of a pretty damn good cover band."

Tom Charity (CNN.com) said:
"Glossy, derivative, ambitious and fatally underpowered."

J. R. Jones (Chicago Reader) said:
"The story eventually devolves into a grab bag of sci-fi tropes but, as with so many other Cruise productions, the sheer scale of everything is so mind-numbing that you may not notice."

Andrew O'Hehir (Salon.com) said:
"The sly, surprising and visually magnificent Tom Cruise vehicle that has forced me - and many other people, I suspect - to revise my first opinion of director Joseph Kosinski."

Rick Groen (Globe and Mail) said:
"Oblivion is an okay blockbuster, a multimillion-dollar exercise in competence."

Calum Marsh (Slant Magazine) said:
"Absent of any sense of self-awareness, Oblivion seems only self-serious, a ponderous mess both misguided and unaware."

Kenneth Turan (Los Angeles Times) said:
"More adventurous than your typical Hollywood tent pole, "Oblivion" makes you remember why science fiction movies pulled you in way back when and didn't let you go."



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