Oblivion (2013) Movie Review

OBLIVION (2013) MOVIE REVIEW

I was probably the only person who pictured Top Gun in Space when they saw this wasn't I...

Oblivion begins with our main protagonist in the film, Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) doing a monologue explaining what happened to Earth in 2077. According to Jack, the Earth was forced to launch nukes across the planet, stopping the aliens but forcing humanity to relocate to one of Saturn's moons known as TITAN. During this, he explains that he and is co-worker/love interest Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are the clean-up crew and scavengers of what remains on Earth. However, things start to take a turn in the wrong direction when Jack finds a survivor who has been haunting him in his dreams (Olga Kurylenko) as well as even, including Beech (Morgan Freeman) and Sykes (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). Now with all of these events occurring  Jack must now discover what really is going on in the wasteland on planet Earth. Many people start to doubt the plot every time it reveals something big but for me, I felt it was a really interesting plot and manages to take some elements from Looper, which is never a bad thing. 

Now in the trailers, it looked like this movie was advertised as a straight up sci-fi action movie. However, this is not the case with this flick. While there are some parts where gun fire is occuring, these scenes are often either fast paced or do not go for very long, which I loved. I loved how the film made me expect the complete opposite upon taking my seat. 

As for the visuals, while I did not see this movie in 3-D, I wish I did because visually, this movie looks extremely impressive. Everything looks very real and although at times you can tell that something is fake, it occurs very rarely and never takes you out of the movie entirely. Also it must be touched on, Tom Cruise looks like he is growing and shrinking from each shot. Now although this is most likely the case with most of his films nowadays, every time he is by himself in a shot, he looks like an average sized man. But when you put him next to another actor, he looks about half their size. For example, when he is standing next to Olga, they are the exact same size which I will admit got me to chuckle. Anyway, the movie looks amazing, even without 3-D.

Acting wise, the film went both ways but at the end, made me go to the admirable side. Tom Cruise obviously steals the show with his witty and wise dialogue. Morgan Freeman also steals the show as Tom's second/third hand man with his more wise banter. Surprisingly for me however the star of the show every time he was on screen was Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Although this is most likely because of the fact that he plays Jamie Lannister on the ever popular TV series Game of Thrones, you cannot deny that he was the silent bad-ass that everyone wanted to either be or be with. Anyway, the acting was really good and surprised me respectively.  

Overall, Oblivion really surprised me and showed me to never judge a movie by its poster, or book by it's cover...whatever. Anyway, Oblivion had an intense soundtrack, great acting, superb visuals and an interesting plot to boost, there is no denying that this Tom Cruise may just be the best movie of the year at the moment, that is until I see Star Trek: Into Darkness.

RATING: 8/10