Review #878 - Oblivion (2013)
THE SCOOP
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Melissa Leo
Plot: A veteran assigned to extract Earth's remaining resources begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself.
Genre: Action / Mystery / Sci-Fi
Awards: -
Runtime: 126min
Rating: PG13 for sci-fi action violence, brief strong language, and some sensuality/nudity.
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
“Is it
possible to miss a place you've never been? To mourn a time you never lived?”
Behold the vision of Joseph
Kosinski and let it take you to another world.
He is fast rising as a science-fiction filmmaker with a bold and
distinctive conceptual understanding of how sci-fi movies should look and
sound.
Oblivion, his new film based
on an unpublished graphic novel he previously penned, is an excellent follow-up
to Tron: Legacy (2010), his debut
feature that impressed with its striking visual style but was lacking in depth
in story and character development.
Still, it was an entertaining film with a couple of virtuosic action
set-pieces.
In Oblivion, Kosinski takes his vision to new heights. In Tom Cruise he has found a reliable star
with a screen presence that commands attention, while pinning the story of
Cruise's character, Jack Harper, against a wide canvas of routine work, occasional
mayhem and the prospect of an unfathomable truth.
Oblivion is like Moon (2009), the extraordinary sci-fi
mystery by Duncan Jones, but with a much bigger budget. Speaking of moons, the Earth's natural
satellite in Oblivion, by the way,
has been destroyed by an alien force, and Earth itself is nearly inhabitable,
like the desertified wasteland in Wall-E
(2008).
Jack's job is to repair drones
that help to protect a part of Earth still not overrun by 'scavengers' – creatures
out to attack what remains of humanity, but his curiosity leads him into a far
grander narrative that has its fair share of twists and turns. However, Oblivion
does not function as a puzzle film that requires unraveling after the end
credits.
Rather, it builds up to a climax
that is only logical, but it is the logic of the sci-fi genre that I'm
referring to - the elevation of the narrative from the quest for truth to the
enlightenment of mankind, as represented by Jack's engagement with his
existence.
Despite Kosinski dealing with
themes so well-explored in films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Solaris
(1972) and The Matrix (1999), all of
which Oblivion owes a huge conceptual
debt to, his film remains most striking for its stunning CG-aided cinematography by his
previous collaborator and recently-minted Oscar-winner Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi, 2012), and its sleek
production design that lends a mild futuristic touch to the setting.
If the film does seem familiar (besides
the themes it explores), it might be because of the original score by Anthony
Gonzalez and M.8.3, which sounds rather derivative of Hans Zimmer’s work for Inception (2010) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), though
there are some interesting music cues in stored. Oblivion
is at best a decent sci-fi film that the mainstream crowd will appreciate. The visuals and sound design will keep them
engaged, though not necessarily riveted.
In a nutshell, Kosinski has
delivered an entertaining ride, though I suspect he will face a hell of a competition
in the same genre from powerhouse filmmakers like J.J. Abrams (for Star Trek Into Darkness), Guillermo Del
Toro (Pacific Rim), Neil Blomkamp (Elysium) and Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) in the next few months. As a huge sci-fi fan myself, all this points
to a salivating summer.
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