Back from Oblivion

This weekend, I went to see the new sci-fi film starring Tom Cruise, Oblivion. The first of this summer's "Earth is no longer civilized" films, it's the story of a drone repair technician who encounters rebel forces in the field and begins to suspect that all in the world is not as he's been told.

The film looks and sounds amazing. An incredible amount of design work went into creating the visuals of Oblivion, from the landscape to the technology to the costumes and everything in between. It's a gorgeous feast for the eyes. At the same time, it's a marvelous treat for the ears. The sound effects are powerful and run all across the spectrum, and the musical score by French electronic band M83 really commands attention. (It's a soundtrack I suspect I'll be picking up, in fact.)

But when it comes to story and character, the film comes up far short of its promise. Oblivion plays like a pastiche of a dozen different sci-fi films. There's a dash of alien invasion, a pinch of dysopian monotony, a thread of erased memory, themes of technology vs. the primitive, and a few other genre tropes that would be spoiling plot points to mention. As a result, even though the film looks and sounds great, it's exactly the opposite of "nothing you've ever seen before."

Whether you'll want to see the movie at all should hinge on whether you like Tom Cruise. He's at his Cruise-iest here, all winning smiles, rebellion, and quips... not playing a character, just playing himself. And with very few other characters in the film, it's hard to look to anyone else for variety. Morgan Freeman isn't in nearly as much of the movie as trailers and commercials might lead you to believe; his 15 minutes or so of screen time feel like an extended cameo. Melissa Leo plays a mission control contact for our heroes, but the script calls on her to be a bit shady, and so that's the only texture you get from her.

There are a pair of actresses I've seen little of before, Olga Kurylenko and Andrea Riseborough, but their characters are rather one dimensional. Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau also appears, but also as a stereotype. There's simply nothing here for any of the performers to really dig into.

So I'm torn about whether and how to recommend the film. I'd give it a grade C, which would normally mean "wait for video, if you see it at all." But since the visuals and sounds are the reason to see the film, you could certainly argue that if you bother seeing it at all, you should do so while it's still in theaters. So do with that what you will. Just don't expect much substance behind the style.