As I begin my review I must mention a certain twinge of pain as this is the first time I’ve written about a movie since the passing of the wonderful Roger Ebert. Almost on a consistent basis I used Roger of The Sun Times and Peter Travis of Rolling Stone as springboards to begin my ideas. They provided a balance in my thoughts that from now on I’ll have to keep from spinning out of control. It’s not that they always thought the opposite, although they often did, it was more the balance of ‘tone’. Peter has a real bite and cynical view on movies where as Roger was always just buoyant about movies even about movie he didn't like. It was along the lines of Roger would say, “Sorry, but your movie sucked.” And Peter would say “Your movie sucked!”
So! For now, until I figure out otherwise, I’ll just quote Peter…. and well…. he pretty much did say Oblivion sucked… well… not really. The word he did use, which sent me to look up all the uses of the word, was “derivative”… And I must say I have to agree. He was basically saying there wasn’t one thing in this movie you haven’t seen in other science fiction movies from The Matrix to Wall-E even. I don’t remember if he mentioned one movie in particular but ***spoiler alert*** …actually it’s only a spoiler if you have seen Oblivion or the film David Bowie’s son Duncan Jones wrote and directed called Moon with Sam Rockwell then you know the “big twist”. The difference is Moon’s story goes waaaaay beyond “the twist” with good science fiction,good character study, good story telling. Here? Much like the memories that haunt the main character, I was haunted by other movies.
Now some reviewers, which I can only assume are the “bought and paid” for ones, use the term “mind-blowing”? Well this movie is the perfect example of the over-use of that term. If you want to possibly say 'mind-blowing visual effects'? I might chime in on that one. The visuals are stunning.The exploded moon (although derivative of the Time Machine remake), the off-shore water transformers, the small cruiser ship and droids, the post-apocalyptic landscapes all were spectacular all the way through.
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| Morgan Freeman / Nikolaj Coster-Waldau |
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| Andrea Riseborough |
But the effects combined with some good action and some well done suspense seemed more like smoke and mirrors in hindsight. This seemed more to cover up some major plot holes and the fact that Morgan Freeman is barely in the movie and sadly wasted when he was. Having gotten hooked on Games of Thrones it was nice to see ‘Jaime Lannister’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau but again, barely utilized. Even though the runaway plot wants to send him into oblivion too Ha!pun there… anyway he’s actually able to make a presence, almost even more so than the two female leads Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko that basically function as plot device to make Tom Cruise the action hero.
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| Olga Kurylenko |
Tom should have stuck with great literary adaptations in science fiction like he did in the past with Minority Report from Philip K. Dick or War of the Worlds from H.G. Wells to have strong solid good science fiction at the core and not some story the director Joseph Kosinski just sort of thought up as a sci-fi fan. Kosinski who also did the lackluster Tron:Legacy, does have some talents, like I said, I enjoyed the flow and incorporation of effects and it made for a mostly enjoyable movie experience… I would even recommend it for… let’s say less discerning fans of great science fiction.
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