Oblivion in theatres!

OBLIVION

Mr. James Colt Harrison

Guest reviewer for Movie Maven at http://moviemaven.intuitwebsites.com

Ever-youthful Tom Cruise is saving the world again in Universal Pictures’ Oblivion. It’s a good thing we have Mr. Cruise to always be there when we need saving. All his pictures have one aspect of his being the tough, eager, and capable leader and savior for just what ails us. Look at his smile! He’s a walking advertisement for a visit to your dentist. Simply stupendous.

Good Heavens! It’s so hard to review a movie that baffles from the start. Not being able to figure out the plot right away—and actually never really “getting it” until way into the film--- and then not completely. My noggin was spinning trying to figure it out.  It was director Joseph Kosinski’s intention to make the film mysterious, but hopefully he merely slipped off the camera boom, hit his head, and made it incomprehensible instead. He had practice earlier by directing Tron: Legacy, and his sci-fi sensibilities carry over to this highly stylized depiction of the future in 2077. Although he wrote the script with William Monahan, Karl Gajdusek, and Michael Arndt, he must have dropped a few pages on the floor before filming started and didn’t notice the gap in the plot.

The earth has been invaded by aliens called Scavs. They destroyed the moon and blasted it into chunks that look like blue cheese on an hors d’oeuvre serving platter. They float around the sky in place, never seemingly escaping from the moon’s gravity. The earth, too, has been blasted to smithereens. We see the venerable Art Deco Empire State Building sticking out of the mud, but Charlton Heston wearing his torn designer loin cloth is nowhere to be seen. . It’s either a professional nod to Planet of the Apes production designers, or Universal got the left-over sets on the cheap. Cruise has taken over the building and uses it for his own purposes. His job is to destroy all remaining aliens.  He doesn’t have to worry about any “filthy” apes.

Olga Kuryenko is a Russian-born beauty and Paris fashion model who makes a terrific “entrance” by crash landing in a rocket. She is encapsulated in a “sleep module” that was launched 60 years ago before earth’s destruction. All those magical potions. moisturizers and salves previously used when she was a model came in handy because she doesn’t have a wrinkle after all those years festering in the compressed air of the capsule. Voila! (Olga is now a French citizen in real life after having been born in the Ukraine in 1979). Tom thinks she looks familiar and he dreams about her when they met in New York before the invasion. Tom gives her a crinkled-eyed look of affection. It’s a huge stretch of method acting. But who is she?

Cruise works in tandem with Vika, British actress Andrea Riseborough. Vika monitors his space shuttle as he careens around earth fixing “drones” that are supposed to be destroying the aliens. They are under the command of Sally (Melissa Leo), who only communicates from a remote satellite via video screen. Leo uses a honey-sweet accent (sounds like Tennessee) to convey both charm and terror, and she’s terrific at never veering too far either way.

Morgan Freeman comes in for what amounts to a large cameo. He wears a funny leather suit and a fright wig-type of hat with feathers. All of this is enhanced with a pair of 1925 motorcycle goggles. What will the boys at the gym say about this outfit? He smokes what appears to be a huge Cuban cigar, which is illegal in the USA. But with the earth nearly destroyed, no-one in Washington will object. Havana is probably wiped off the map. Freeman is there to lead everybody to salvation, but does he succeed? He’s great just reading the phone book.

Production design by Daren Gilford is superb. The futuristic sets are the latest in industrial minimalist chic. Cruise’s aerie is set on a tall pole into the mountain above the clouds. Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s dictum that houses should be “of” the hill and not “on” the hill were ignored. This glass house doesn’t even touch the mountain. So much for organic architectural integrity. Cinematographer Claudio Miranda of Life of Pi goes in the opposite direction with this film by the use of non-color and only splashes of subtle hues for effect. Costume Designer Marlene Stewart keeps things simple for the ladies so that the designs could be from any future century.

Oblivion  is a beautifully made film technically. Computer geeks will want to see if electronically-generated scenes can be distinguished from the real thing. Character development is sparse, so audience emotional involvement is light, although one can sympathize during the proper moments. It’s basically an action movie, and an awfully good one. Go see it and enjoy the design, the action, the beautiful cast and the photography. The alleged $125,000,000 spent on the film is all on the screen.