Oblivion (2013) - Written Review

For those who don't know, Oblivion is a 2013 Post-Apocalyptic Sci-fi film starring Tom Cruise...and I have no idea why you would have even heard of this. It's such a forgettable film that I'm amazed I even remembered it was a thing before sitting down to watch it. Oblivion is a bland, convoluted and quite possibly nonsensical film and...I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The story follows Tom Cruise, who plays a generic protagonist doing simple survey missions in a fancy space-age plane (which he of course flies dangerously, to tick-off that box for you) or space-age bike (let's just add that to the Tom Cruise check-list too) with the help of his British wife (and another tick in the Tom Cruise box) until he meets the mysterious Julia (wasn't that his wife's name in Mission: Impossible III?) who begins to explain to him the secrets of what's really going on here. With Morgan Freeman dishing out long spouts of exposition to further help, it becomes clear that Tom Cruise is in fact the Chosen One...or something like that. There's robots and stuff, I don't know.

Oblivion has such a strangely convoluted plot that you really need strong characters to ground the story; this film has Tom Cruise as Tom Cruise, and basically two female love interests. Forget interesting characters, because Andrea Riseborough's wooden performance as Cruise's wife and Olga Kurylenko's underdeveloped turn as Julia ensure that we don't even have a strong groundwork to begin with. There's supposed to be a love triangle here, but the actors have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever, making any kind of emotional investment impossible. Don't get me wrong, Kurylenko isn't bad or anything, but she and Cruise clearly don't have good chemistry together. Cruise himself, meanwhile, goes for it in this film, not demonstrating a huge amount of range, but given the screenplay and clearly limited direction (I mean, no one gives a good performance in this film), he does pretty well for himself.

Morgan Freeman, meanwhile, just rattles off nonsensical exposition in as short a time as possible, clearly hoping to get his week or two of shooting over and done with. When the big twists hit, the actors just couldn't care, and neither could Jospeh Kosinski, who directs these moments with so little flair or drama that you almost begin to wonder if its meant to be a spoof on convoluted Sci-fi flicks. The screenplay is so contrived and awkward that I wondered if this was from the same guys responsible for such brilliant scripts as The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Star Trek Into Darkness, Cowboys & Aliens and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Maybe even the 2017 The Mummy film for good measure. But alas, sadly the blame must be put on two other writers, which feels like a bit of a shame to me.

The cinematography is a mixed bag too. Some scenes look stunning, but some scenes, and even shots, just look dull, flat and poorly colour-graded. I used to wonder why some prolific film-makers hate digital cinematography so much, but I begin to realise why: it only works if graded correctly, and Oblivion can't achieve that - at least not consistently.

On the positive side, the nonsensical plot is making a little bit more sense upon thinking back over the film, but it doesn't mean that Oblivion works. It doesn't. There's still the issue of poor characterisation and frankly poor storytelling. The narrative doesn't unfold properly, or at least not to a degree at which the audience can remain invested before just giving up entirely. While some films are slow-burners, Oblivion is just a ticking clock of waiting for one predictable plot twist after another - none of which I'll spoil in this review for those who want to go in without. There's a nice score underpinning the whole piece, and if I liked the film more I could imagine myself maybe even purchasing it. M83 have done a terrific job here, combining more conventional Hans Zimmer-style music with some wonderful synth elements. Had the director done a better job, this score would be a wonderful accompaniment to the film, but sadly its just one of Oblivion's few merits.

To conclude: Oblivion isn't awful. That'd be an overstatement. It's poorly-written with some weak direction and dull characters. I don't have any particular animosity towards this flick, but there's not enough merits to really make me like the film in any way. I mean, Tom Cruise and Olga Kurylenko are okay, and the score on its own is nice, but the whole picture is just dull, uninspired and full of wasted potential. My expectations weren't particularly high, but even those weren't met. I just sat waiting for Oblivion to end. 4/10