Oblivion is a tough movie to review without spoiling, and I think it’s worth not spoiling because I don’t think it was widely watched and it wasn’t bad. It is a post apocalyptic sci-fi movie that has a little in common with the Matrix and a little in common with Independence Day. It has a some cool sci-fi stuff going on. Space travel, aliens, nuclear war, radiation, etc.
It suffers because it has too much going on. There are a ton of twists, and the twists are sort of fun and compelling but there are just so many! It’s like if Darth Vader is Luke’s father, Luke & Leia are sisters, Palpatine is Sidious, Natalie Portman is the queen, Yoda is Yoda, Jar Jar is a Sith Lord, and Kylo Ren is secretly a member of the Harlem Globetrotters were all in the same movie and instead of having 7 films of lore and character development setting it up you had 2 minutes of voiceover from Tom Cruise.
I feel like each of these big reveal moments were supposed to make me say “WHOOOAAA” but really I had a hard time caring.
Something I noticed about Tom Cruise that seems to have become especially common in the last few years of his career is that he always tries to work something in to make you think he’s just a normal guy. It’s such an odd thing for a leading man to do because usually they can just show us that they’re regular people or that they are whoever they are supposed to be in the movie, but in Cruise’s roles it seems like he or the scriptwriters have to work in a special part of the script to get you to relate to him. It’s like something a politician would do. For example, in Oblivion there is a scene where Tom Cruise’s character is investigating a barren wasteland and he discovers an old, ruined football stadium, where he lands and promptly says, “This was the site of the last Super Bowl. Classic Game. The Clock was running down and the football Quarterback fumbled the football! Then he ran to grab the football and grabbed it and threw a Hail Mary football pass! The Rookie Wide Receiver caught it in his human hands and it was a touchdown!” Ok that’s not an exact quote but you get the picture.
I think it’s entirely possible that Tom Cruise actually is an alien, but more on that when I review Going Clear.
Next: Edge of Tomorrow
Every Tom Cruise Movie 