Runtime: 2 hours, 5 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Quick Impressions:
The inspired cinematography of recent Oscar winner Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi) is reason enough to see Oblivion in the theater. In fact, I’d recommend IMAX or (the way we saw it) Cinemark XD. Even though it’s only April, and the Academy’s prejudice against sci-fi films is well known, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Miranda nominated again this year for his amazing work in Oblivion. The movie is stunning, like a more beautiful version of The Matrix.
Unfortunately, it’s a little too much like a beautiful version of The Matrix. The story—while not plagued by endless plot holes or conspicuously awful dialogue—feels more than vaguely familiar, and, as a result, leaves us very flat. But the film’s greatest weakness by far is its pacing which is—to put it very kindly—abysmal. (At one point, characters admire “Christina’s World,” that famous Andrew Wyeth painting of the girl sitting motionless in a field. I think that painting moves at a faster pace than the film.)
Shot largely in Iceland, Oblivion presents a stark landscape, beautiful but cold. Sadly, the story also leaves us cold—and not quite in the way that it wants to. Is Oblivion trying to be like 2001: A Space Odyssey or like Top Gun with spaceships? Ultimately, it tries to give us the best of both worlds and ends up only a pale imitation of each, so that we never get fully invested emotionally or intellectually.
Still the cinematographer is in top form. If you’re going to see Oblivion, pay to see it in the theater. Unless you have a home theater with an IMAX-sized screen, I honestly don’t even see the point of watching this at home. It deserves a screen fit to display its inspired vistas.
The Good:
As I’ve mentioned many times before, I don’t particularly like Tom Cruise as an actor. In fact, I practically hate him. But he’s so right for this part that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role. Oblivion seems a much better fit for Cruise’s screen persona than Jack Reacher. Even though he was more fun as Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages, this project is certainly the best star vehicle he’s had since Mission Impossible (though it’s hard not to be distracted by the fact that in the past year, he’s played two Jacks and a Jaxx, and Oblivion provides many opportunities for mulling over such oddities.)
Cruise is joined by a small but very solid cast. Both my husband and I loved Andrea Riseborough as Victoria (though my husband found her immense pupil size fascinating to the point of distraction). Lovely but exuding a certain captivating neurosis, Riseborough makes Victoria possibly the most compelling and mysterious character in the film. In some ways, she’s the best because there’s not such an easy or pat explanation for her behavior, and Riseborough’s performance is probably my favorite.
On the way out of the theater, I heard fellow patrons complaining, “That was so slow.” “I know! It was like nothing just kept happening. And she was like the worst actress ever.”
I have a hard time imagining which “she” they meant because I thought all of the actresses in major roles gave good, solid performances. Though Riseborough’s was my favorite, I also liked Olga Kurylenko (who played a refreshingly non-sleazy Bond girl in Quantam of Solace). Kurylenko is quite pretty, and while her character isn’t as odd as Riseborough’s, I thought she played Julia perfectly, with the proper mix of desperation, confusion, resignation, and warmth.
My mother hates Melissa Leo, so she should love her in this movie. Leo’s accent is over-the-top and not very great, but it definitely raises a red flag and makes a certain point. Even though my mother thinks Melissa Leo plays herself in everything, she’s wrong. (She’s only seen her in The Fighter.) Leo has quite a lot of range, and she’s good here.
Morgan Freeman sort of seems like he’s just in the movie because he has such an established screen persona that his character can be dropped in without wasting time on a lengthy backstory. Beech doesn’t need much development because we already know Morgan Freeman so well, and we trust and like him. I think the film could have given him a slightly better part, though the ending is cute, and Freeman has sufficient talent to elevate an underwritten role.
I kept trying to place Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and his name certainly didn’t help. But now I see that he’s Jaime Lannister on Game of Thrones. His character, Sykes, needs more development, but he certainly looks the part he’s playing.
Zoe Bell’s name comes up in the closing credits, and apparently she plays someone named Kara. I’m familiar with Bell from her fairly large role in Grindhouse, but I did not notice her in this film at all. While Oblivion definitely calls for the talents of a stunt woman on multiple occasions, Bell is apparently in this as an actress, and I have no idea who Kara is, no memory of her at all. Isn’t that strange?
Besides being well acted and amazing visually, Oblivion also has a nice, big, “happy”—if you want to call it that—Hollywood ending that should appeal to Tom Cruise fans. Even though it’s painfully slow and kind of cold, the movie does deliver enough crowd-pleasing type action near the end to make it a decent, not too disappointing popcorn flick. As high-minded sci-fi, its failures are more glaring. I must say, Oblivion was coherent and reasonably logical, while last year’s Prometheus was a big, crazy, trainwreck of a mess. But I think Prometheus is the more memorable film, one that asked bigger questions and offered more unforgettable scenes. (In Oblivion, the landscape is more interesting than the characters.)
For children, the movie is probably better. To me, it seemed like a crazy jumble of The Matrix, 2001, The Secret of the Sword (that He-Man and She-Ra movie, seriously!), Wall-E, and Independence Day with occasional flashes of Star Wars. It looked better than any of those films (except maybe select scenes from Wall-E and Star Wars), but its story lacked the exciting originality of its cinematography. If you’re young and haven’t seen a lot of movies yet, then for you, the plot twists will be more unpredictable, the story more exciting. My ten-year-old stepson seemed pretty enthralled. (And despite the slow pace, my four-year-old daughter watched the beginning intently. Though she fell asleep in the middle, she also enjoyed the ending and jabbered excitedly about the movie afterwards, claiming that she’d liked it even though the plot was “awkward” and “confusing.”)
Best Scene:
I can tell you the worst scene—the one in the swimming pool. I felt like I’d wandered into a screening of Risky Business by mistake. The whole thing gave Cruise too many opportunities to grin and felt awkward and dated, like something out of the 1980s.
Since I find Riseborough so compelling, I most like the scene when Jack returns for her and begs her to come with him. She’s very good, and Cruise doesn’t ruin the moment by mugging for the camera. The later echo we get of this moment is almost even better. Both Cruise and Riseborough do some fine acting, and the strained relationship of these two puzzling, fragile characters is legitimately compelling.
Another very memorable scene is the one featuring the playback of the flight recorder. I’d say something about the lingering impression left by intense final emotions, but anything I say would spoil the movie.
Best Scene Visually:
Visually, the whole movie is excellent. Singling out just one scene seems impossible, especially when all I can remember is the stagey, dramatic ending that definitely harkens back to 2001. (That was my daughter’s favorite part, by the way, the part in space.)
After seeing this movie, both kids want to travel to Iceland. While I’ll be satisfied if we can just pull off a few days in a Disney park, I definitely see why they’re interested. Usually we get the most dramatic, exciting views when Jack flies off into areas where he’s not technically supposed to go.
In terms of look, Oblivion would pair well with Life of Pi since the two cinematic worlds have complementary color schemes. Featuring the vibrancy of an Indian zoo, the orange coat of a dynamic tiger, and the rainbow of a magical sea, Life of Pi is almost palpably warm. In stark contrast, Oblivion is almost too cool for words.
Best Action Sequence:
One of the best moments in the movie is the fight Jack has in the desert after his plane crashes. Finally, the pace starts to pick up, and the first relatively unexpected thing happens. While I was not shocked by what Jack faced in the desert, I was not expecting it in the same way that I’d foreseen the basic outline of the plot up to that point. The emergence of an unexpected enemy raised some genuinely provocative philosophical questions (though I don’t know that the movie did a great job of addressing them). The scene in the library is pretty good, too—almost like a video game. Some of the later moments of action seemed harder to follow visually (because of bad lighting), so I found them less fulfilling.
Funniest Scene:
The funniest scene played only in my mind when I imagined recasting the movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the leading roles. No sane director would do that, but I would do it, and that’s why nobody gives me millions of dollars to make movies.
The Negatives:
Oblivion definitely believes in concision. The problem is, it takes conservation of characters and dialogue to such lengths that we get a film featuring remarkably few people saying next to nothing. So when we’re given clues about the plot, it’s hard not to notice them right away and interpret them correctly because there aren’t any red herrings. Nothing else is being said or done. Only what counts is there. Partially because of this (also due to an overly informative trailer and a less than original plot) the movie is very, very, very, very predictable. Within the first ten minutes or so, I had totally figured out what was going on. I mean, okay, maybe I didn’t know every single detail, but I had the basic idea in place. When somebody is telling you stuff like, “It’s so odd that…” or “It’s so unfair, but [no explanation]” or “we had to do this very odd thing [again no explanation]” you’d have to be pretty lazy—or seeing your first movie ever—not to connect the dots yourself and rather quickly.
Because the movie is very predictable, it’s also very slow. We figure out what’s going on about ten minutes in, but the movie is over two hours long, and nothing much really happens until about the last forty-five minutes. That does not make for a truly captivating, repeatable cinematic experience.
And then, just when something new and unexpected and exciting happens, it’s practically all over (and not in the most satisfying way).
To me, the most interesting point that the film made was that human beings are distinguished (from other types of beings) by love for one another. (That’s a huge theme that comes up again and again in Classical literature, and in fact, they mention that in the movie.) I wish the film had explored this idea in a more interesting way. To me, the end of the movie just felt like a less satisfying jumble of 2001 (but without the originality) and Independence Day (but without the heart). Without spoilers, let me just say that I wish the movie had explored some of the darker implications suggested by the main theme of the power of love. Intellectually, I would have been more satisfied with a less “happy” ending because the happy ending didn’t feel truly satisfying. It felt more tacked on at the last minute.
If there’s ever a sequel, I hope we see more of Andrea Riseborough because her character needs more development.
Overall:
Oblivion is beautiful. Recent Oscar winner Claudio Miranda should get noticed again by the Academy for his amazing cinematography. If you see the film in IMAX or XD, you’ll get your money’s worth when it comes to mind-blowing vistas and perfectly framed shots.
But the story is less amazing, and the pacing is far too slow, particularly in light of the fact that the trailer has spoiled so much of the plot. (It’s no fun to be kept guessing for over an hour when you already know in five to ten minutes!)
Tom Cruise does seem perfect for the part (and it’s easy to see why the plot might appeal to him). Giving a solid star turn, he leads a capable cast on a very high production value adventure that may not be all that thrilling but is definitely something staggering to behold.
If you see this movie, see it in the theater on the biggest and best screen available. The story is okay, the acting is good, and the cinematography is out of this world.