Oblivion
U.S.A. 2013

Opening 11 Apr 2013

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Writing credits: Karl Gajdusek, Michael DeBruyn, Joseph Kosinski
Principal actors: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

It’s the year 2077. After an attack by aliens, the Earth is almost uninhabitable and its former inhabitants now live on Titan. (At least that’s what people are made to believe.) Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), aka Tech #49, is one of a few technicians who have stayed on earth to help protect stations that convert seawater into fuel. With his communications officer and lover Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), he lives high above ground in a Sky Tower. As Jack and Victoria had to undergo a “security wipe”, they only remember the previous five years of their lives. Confronted with information that contradicts the official version of history and everything he thought he knew about himself, Jack wants to know the truth, and the truth turns out to be quite disturbing. Oblivion is a good, visually stunning, popcorn movie. With a better story and a more original ending, it could have been great. It’s definitely worth watching, especially for sci-fi fans. (Christa Greiff)

Second Opinion

Director Kosinsky’s film will take you from here to Oblivion in about two seconds. The question is what does Oblivion mean? Are we forgotten in a location that has no meaning? Has Jack, the repairman (Tom Cruise) whose task is to strip the Earth of its remaining resources, forgotten who he is and what his real purpose is? From the moment we meet Jack and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), we see the vision of a perfect team. Everything is technologically perfect with equipment that can do most anything. Only Jack has a major problem since he is haunted by strange memories from the past that don’t coincide with his present situation. We soon see that Mankind has managed to survive a devastating catastrophe. It is reminiscent of Road Warriors, where the characters are riding around on motor cycles wearing wild biker clothes and the planet Earth is in shambles which has the look of the old Planet of the Apes movies.

Unfortunately, those who love this genre of film will be deeply disappointed that there is very little information on the history of the aliens, or how mankind seems to have managed to survived a very devastating blow to the Earth, or how they have been surviving up until this point. If you are a Tom Cruise or Andrea Riseborough fan, you will enjoy the many clones of these two, not to mention the repeated images of Jack’s old memories which come alive the minute his wife arrives back on Earth. There are too many coincidences and not enough answers, which lead us to the question as to why we need to be lost in this film called Oblivion in the first place. My advice is simply to save your money and wait until it shows up on TV. There are plenty of other films along this futuristic doomsday scenario which are coming out in the next couple of months. I am sure you can find a better one than this somewhere out there in space. (Shelly Schoeneshoefer)