With my busy schedule lately, I’ve been going through “new film” withdrawal. Fortuitously Playstation Store had Oblivion as an early release for the price of £14.99 (about $23). Despite my reservations, my desperation to see any new film made me purchase the film. Result? Surprisingly good and worth the exorbitant price of purchase. *Does it annoy anyone else that Playstation “early releases” are only for sale and not for rent? Answers on a postcard please.”
The film is directed by Joseph Kosinski (who has a credit for co-wrting the screenplay along with Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt, he also directed Tron: Legacy). It stars Tom Cruise (insert prior film titles here), the gravitas actor himself Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace, Hitman), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones, The Hunters, and the one actor who should play agent Leon in any live action film of the Resident Evil game series) and Andrea Riseborough (Welcome to the Punch, Brighton Rock).
The plot revolves around a future earth that has been destroyed and decimated by an alien race. Jack Hawkins (Cruise) and his partner Victoria (Riseborough) have two weeks left on the now inhospitable planet as a team assigned to protect the energy producing fusion generators that power Titan where the human survivors who fled Earth are living.
Earth won the conflict with the aliens after the moon was destroyed by using nuclear warheads and survivors who didn’t migrate to Titan are scavenging the equipment that Jack must protect.
As Jack and Victoria near the end of their mission and the scavenger attacks increase, he sees an object fall from the sky and when he tracks it to the crash site, he discovers something that changes his perception of the world and his place in it.
I enjoyed the film. As I said, it is surprisingly good. I have never been a huge Tom Cruise fan despite the fact that he’s always turned in excellent performances. I think it has to do with his rather bizarre behaviour “off screen.” Cruise doesn’t disappoint in this film and I was amazed at his physical condition. Something has to be said for having the money to maintain biceps that large.
I fell in love with Julia (Kurylenko), but then I’ve had a “screen crush” on this actress ever since Hitman.
The film offers a brilliant cinematic experience and the characters all seem disturbingly real, despite the “Moon” device used and the somewhat “contrived” ending. I found myself unable to stop watching the film and wound up not taking any breaks. I was so caught up in the storyline that I didn’t want to pause it.
I will say that I did guess the plot twist fairly early on, but that was a combination of watching the trailer too many times and the fact that most sic-fi films all lean towards the same direction recently. In spite of the fact that I’d guessed the twist, I still enjoyed the film.
I have to give the film a 4.5 out of 5 stars. It loses half a star because I did guess the twist and its reliance on another film for another plot twist, so half a star off for lack of originality. It is still a cracking good film and worth a watch.
So Oblivion was surprisingly good and I’m not upset that I had to buy the film versus just rent it. Although I do miss my special features and will most likely get a blue ray copy just for those. On my trip to South Africa (which I will keep posting about) I saw quite a few films that I need to review. The plane journey back was sleepless for the duration of the almost 11 hour flight, so I got to fit quite a few films in. These will be cropping up from time to time in the form of reviews.
Michael Smith
United Kingdom
7 August 2013
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You’re welcome 🙂
I have yet to watch it…I don’t know why I missed it, I like Gerard Butler, although Hollywood still doesn’t know what to do with him…Plus Morgan Freeman? I’ll put it on my “to see” list!! Thanks for bringing it up! 🙂
Another favourite film of mine this year is ‘Olympus has Fallen’ – again for the edge of your seat action. I’d love to read your review of this 🙂
Same here! I really enjoyed the heck out of it! 😀
I loved this film…it kept me on the edge of my seat 🙂
Exactly, we want more Gravitas! Cheers mate!! 😉
Hi Mike, nice review man. 🙂 I think I was one of the few people who liked this film at the time of its release and didn’t give it a hard time. I liked the story and felt like Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough were great as the lead roles, obviously the visuals were incredible and I loved the scope of it. While the story does get a little muddled up and questionable at times its still an enjoyable film. It just needed more Morgan Freeman in it, who doesn’t love a bit of Morgan Freeman!?! XD
Glad to hear you enjoyed it. It seems to be the film that folks love to bash and not really getting why. It was a entertaining film and one that I’ll definitely be watching again! 🙂
I watched it last night with my husband’s family (family dinner and movie night) and they all thought it was dumb and self-centred. However i enjoyed it! It was a tad predictable and corny however i still enjoyed it enough that i would watch it again.
OUCH! A spoiler phone call?? Bummer! Thanks mate! 😀
Everyone is having this positive reviews for Oblivion…but I don’t want to watch it anymore because on a long distance call, my godmother decided she wanted to tell me the plot twist and the story and the ending…hahahaha!!! Great review 🙂
indeed 😀
Well it is nice to know that great minds think alike! LOL
Am not alone! Also liked this film 😀
Also agreed! Cheers mate! 🙂
Adore Moon and yeah it was better, but I did get a kick out of this one… 🙂
LOL Despite the obvious plot device stolen from Moon, I guess I enjoyed Cruise looking confused! Cheers!
I’ll tell you one thing: these guys know how to Market something. They are almost as mercilessly efficient and single minded as those droids.
Nicely done Mike. I thought this was alright but nothing hugely special. Moon is very similar and by far the better film.
Good review Mike. Everything that happens in this movie, has been done before and hell, probably used a lot better. It’s just a sci-fi flick that doesn’t have much else to do, other than show Tommy Cruise looking terribly confused the whole time.