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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

Oblivion

Despite all the flack he’s taken over Scientology, Tom Cruise is still perhaps the world’s biggest international movie star and one of the few actors whose name is listed above the title on a movie poster. In that sense, Cruise’s new film ‘Oblivion’ seems like a no-brainer, especially for the international market, if you watch the trailer full of action; neat sci-fi vehicles and gadgets; beautiful 4K cinematography and CG effects; perhaps some romance with attractive accented women; and, most importantly, Cruise’s megawatt star presence. But audiences expecting a sci-fi shoot-‘em-up may be in for a surprise since ‘Oblivion’ is actually a fairly slow-paced, twisty film about memory, identity, and humanity that will leave a lot of sci-fi fans feeling they’ve seen all this before.

‘Oblivion’ takes place on an earth left devastated and abandoned by humans after a war with an alien race known as Scavengers, or Scavs. Despite winning the war, humans have been forced to flee to one of Saturn’s moons or are waiting to depart aboard a giant space station orbiting earth called the Tet (short for tetrahedron) which is powered by huge generators on earth fueled by ocean water. Cruise plays Jack, sort of a futuristic fix-it man whose job is to repair flying robots called drones that protect the generators from Scavs still running around on earth. Jack and his wife /support team Victoria (played by Andrea Riseborough) have had their memories erased to protect the secret nature of their mission, though Jack is haunted by dreams or flashbacks of a life before the war with a mysterious woman.

That woman turns out to be Julia (played by Olga Kurylenko), perhaps the hottest astronaut in the history of space exploration and a dead ringer for a young Catherine Zeta-Jones. When Jack discovers Julia in a crashed spacecraft and she seems to know who he is, and Jack later learns that a band of humans (led by an underused Morgan Freeman) is still living on earth, he begins to wonder if everything he’s been told by his commander on the Tet (played by Melissa Leo) about his job, the war, and himself are lies.

So let the sci-fi comparisons begin. The first part of ‘Oblivion’ is actually a lot like Pixar’s ‘WALL•E’, since both are about diligent yet unusually curious workers on a desolate and abandoned earth who begin to wonder if there might be more to life and themselves than just doing their jobs. The issues of identity and the unreliability of memory reminded me of Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 film ‘Solaris’, and the last part of ‘Oblivion’ (which goes about 20 minutes too long) gets very ‘Matrix’-y. But the strongest parallel is with a film I won’t even mention since it’ll give away ‘Oblivion’’s biggest twist, so I’ll just say that it’s written and directed by Duncan Jones and came out in 2009.

But while ‘Oblivion’ is derivative, that’s not at all saying it’s a bad movie. The 4K digital cinematography (especially in IMAX) looks fantastic, the CG effects are totally seamless, and the production design is top notch. The score by M83 is nice, though sometimes a bit loud, and the acting is mostly good, except for Freeman, who does a lot of explaining but seems out of place, like he never bothered to figure out what the story was about. And Cruise, as always, throws himself into the role 100%, does a lot of his own stunts, and still has that star quality that’s hard to take your eyes off of.

However, this is also not to say that ‘Oblivion’ is a great movie. It’s…an interesting movie that doesn’t bludgeon you with action, keeps you on your toes with some twists and surprises, and expects the audience to pay attention. But unlike most sci-fi stories, ‘Oblivion’ doesn’t have anything to say about society, humanity, or culture, nor does it provide any predictions or warnings about where mankind might be headed, nor does it have characters you really relate to. ‘Oblivion’ is well made and will keep you engaged, but I doubt it’ll elicit strong emotions in either direction.

‘Oblivion’ is rated PG-13 and opens today.