Sunday 26 May 2013

Oblivion Review

Another movie that had a tremendous amount of potential.  It has some very good actors in Tom Cruise, Melissa Leo and Morgan Freeman.  It also has a story that could be quite intriguing.  The problem is that the story is written with a lot of holes that it leaves the viewer wondering "what the hell?"  This can sometimes be overcome with some great action (see Transformers).  But they decided to try and make this a philosophical play rather than a sci-fi action movie.  The problem is that, in order for a philosophical movie to be good, it has to make sense and not contradict itself over and over.  Oblivion fails miserably in this.

It was marketed as an action film and inferred that Morgan Freeman would be a central actor in it.  Freeman doesn't show up until almost an hour through (I checked my watch) and the action is almost non-existent except for very close to the end.  By then, you just want it to end quickly.  It's almost as if the executives knew they had a horrible movie on their hands and the only way to get anyone to see it was to completely deceive the viewing public.

Right from the start, there is nothing to keep the audience motivated.  The characters of Jack and Julia are so boring that you really don't care if they live or die at all.  Then, Jack puts on a Yankees hat and, in a world where if you're a baseball fan, you either love or despise the Yankees, all they do is make a large portion of the audience hate him even more.  So, you start thinking about the story.  Maybe that will be good.  But, as I said, it is so full of holes that you just roll your eyes for most of it.  Here's an example that won't spoil the movie because it happens very early.  Jack has had his memory wiped.  The only thing that keeps coming back is a vague dream with some bits and pieces.  He's completely cut off from the memories of history.  Yet, he is able to describe, in great detail, the final play of the last Super Bowl ever played which he acknowledges, happened before the war.  Granted, he tells Julia that this memory comes from reading about it.  But she's not supposed to know about his little "man cave" haven that he goes to.  So, either she's too stupid to ask him where he got access to this book or his mind isn't wiped.  And it just gets more ridiculous from there...

Don't see it.  I paid $3.50 to see it and even that was too much.  The Sci-Fi genre is so rich with better movies that this will never be worth your time.

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