Every now and again I am pleasantly surprised by a film. Oblivion is one such film and I'm still amazed at just how much I enjoyed it.
Oblivion is a post-apocalyptic story set in the year 2077. Humanity has defeated an invasion by an alien race, but as a result the Earth has become essentially uninhabitable. Humanity has relocated to Titan, one of Saturn's moons. Apparently, the only two humans left behind are Jack and Victoria. Their job is to maintain a small army of flying drones. These drones, in turn, protect massive thingees that are sucking up all of Earth’s water in order to convert it to hydrogen for the survivors on Titan.
This should make an eyebrow raise because that setup is just all full of WTF, as is the mandatory memory wipe Jack and Victoria had before reporting for duty. Security, don’t you know.
Sure.
Thus, right off the bat you know something is amiss and just what that is unfolds over the course of the film. Oblivion is the sort of film that is a continuous set of reveals. One moment you think you’ve got it figured out, and the next you don’t. It keeps doing this, right up until the very end.
This is not to say that the film doesn’t have its predictable elements. Given the number of films referenced within Oblivion, it can’t help but be predictable in one way or another.
Nonetheless, the film unfolds in tidy and enjoyable fashion. The action sequences are perfunctory, well choreographed and such, but for me they got in the way of the more human story being told. The film is at its best in its quieter moments, even though it builds to a thundering climax.
Tom Cruise plays Jack and Andrea Riseborough stars as Victoria. Olga Kurylenko is a survivor of a crashed spaceship that Jack finds, and Morgan Freeman plays Morgan Freeman, which is just fine. It was also fun to see Jamie Lannister Nikolaj Coster-Waldau somewhere other than Westeros.
Writer-Producer-Director Joseph Kosinski has a wonderful eye for production values and design. The film is eye candy of the highest order. Oblivion is his second film, after Tron: Legacy, and he’s already developed his own sense of style, of how he wants to present his films and stories. It’s amazing how he works to capture so much in-camera, despite the film’s heavy use of CGI. You know that a given shot has to be a visual effect, but they blend seamlessly the in-camera footage.
Some design choices stumble, though. For example, there’s a flight sequence through a “canyon” but the walls are actually old, buried skyscrapers. This might look cool, but it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Unlike how Jack and Victoria’s mission doesn’t make a lick of sense, this won’t be explained by the plot. Kosinski just thought it would look cool, even if it’s nonsense. Ditto some other quick shots, such as the arm from the Statue of Liberty. Egads, does that shot have to be in every post-apocalyptic film?
The visual effects, as said, are impeccable. The music, by French electronic band M83, is simple and simply great. A musical theme is established early on and carries throughout the film. It’s a simple theme that seems to always evolve yet always repeat. It’s lovely.
Oblivion is not without flaws. There are some plot holes and inconsistencies and more than a few coincidences. By the end, though, all of its problems had vanished and it simply took my breath away. Because at its core it’s a very human story. Surprisingly, it’s not an epic or an alien invasion story or even a story of the apocalypse. It’s a love story.
What pulled me into Oblivion was that love story, gently revealed as the film’s mysteries were gently uncovered, a love “undimmed by time, unbound by death.”
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