CONVOLUTION

MOVIE REVIEW:

OBLIVION

By:
G.P. MANALO

Starring:

Tom Cruise

Morgan Freeman

Olga Kurylenko

Oblivion – Takes place in the year 2077, when mankind was evacuated from earth after it was attacked by an intergalactic threat. Jack and Victoria are the only ones left on earth as they extract earth’s remaining resources. Complications occur when Jack’s recurring dreams of his past gets in the way and a bigger threat that he discovered.

I was curious about Oblivion; I was intrigued to see this movie by the cast and the visuals shown in the trailers, but the story – I wasn’t really crazy with.  Going into this movie, I had that feeling where the movie will be very convoluted because as shown in the previews there was so much story going on that it feels like that it is more than one storyline (I counted 2-3 storylines were done in this movie),  And that unfortunately did came true.

The movie is written and directed by Joseph Kosinski, the same guy who brought us Tron: Legacy three years ago.  I was not the biggest fan of the movie though I enjoy it very much, but going back to the topic; the reason why I referenced Tron: Legacy is because it suffered the same flaws this movie did. The movie suffers from under-written characters, plot and also over-explanatory events that took place in the movie. To go into detail I want to mention the story first before all else, I can say that the premise is very good; admittedly the first hour of this movie was a pretty good set-up for the characters and the story itself, but you leave wanting something more. The movie spends its time on what I like to call “Shyamalan-ing”, where they build multiple things up for a big plot twist (in this case: Plot twists); there were multiple plot twists in this movie both you can sniff something from the beginning and some are something that you cannot see coming and yet for that the movie suffered in terms of pacing, the pacing did seem very off in this movie as it would go in a fast pace and become drastically slow again.

To talk about the performances real quick, As much as I thought Tom Cruise as an actor is an impressive actor physically and professionally (he’s a nutjob, sure but you have to admit he’s a very exceptional actor) and he did bring a good enough performance in this movie I thought that his character was a bit under-written along with Morgan Freeman, (who also did a great performance) who happens to be the antagonist of this movie and pretty much the rest of the cast. Morgan Freeman’s character is very under-written, he along with the gang he had in the movie felt very un-needed in the long run it is the writing’s fault at that I just wished that their side of the plot was developed a little bit more to work with the big climax and reveals. The remaining cast members like Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko.

This movie is without a doubt, visually stunning and it does result to very enjoyable action sequences and very surreal and photo-realistic imagery. The use of CGI and surprising enough the usage of practical effects are very impressive as it brings a surreal vision of the distant future to life on-screen. I like how these visuals have some visual-nods (inspirations) to various sci-films such as Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In the end, despite its flaws I manage to enjoy Oblivion from the first half of the film and some parts in the second half (that last fight scene was pretty mind-blowing, I have to admit). The movie had its pros to the performances, the visuals and the fantastic score from M83 (which I didn’t put into detail in the review), and the set-up to this movie was very good though it wasn’t executed very well in the long-run. The movie still suffers from a messy pacing, very under-written characters and overly-explanatory situations (due to the occasional “Shyamalan-ing”). You may enjoy this movie for the visuals and most parts of the first and second half, I wouldn’t recommend to see this movie immediately; it’s more of a “See it if you’re bored” type of movie.

THE GOOD:

+THE SET-UP

+GOOD PERFORMANCES

+VISUALS

+M83 DID THE SCORE

THE BAD:

-MESSY PACING

-UNDER-WRITTEN CHARACTERS

-EXECUTION

-SHYAMALAN-ING

MY RATING:

3.5/5 – SEE IT, IF YOU’RE BORED (MATINEE!)