What – Oblivion
(Movie)
Reviewer - Joe Calleri.
Stars – 2 and a half.
Full Disclosure - I attended a Universal
Pictures media screening of this movie.
SPOILER ALERT!!! Here’s what to expect, including spoilers, so
read on only if you dare!
At one point
during Oblivion, Morgan Freeman’s
character, Malcolm Beech, describes Tom Cruise’s character, Jack Harper, as lacking
soul and humanity.
What an apt
summary of this visually resplendent, but strange, frustrating,
incongruity-riddled, and ultimately unsuccessful, $100-million-plus, high
concept, sci-fi film, based on Joseph Kosinsk’s graphic novel of the same name,
which he co-wrote with Arvid Nelson. The busy Kosinski acts as co-writer (along
with William Monahan, Karl Gajdusek, and Michael Arndt), producer, and
director.
The
overly-convoluted story-line – just one of the many millstones around the
metaphorical neck of this film - goes something like this: at the opening of
the movie, Tom Cruise’s character, Jack Harper, aka Tech 49, narrates that, it’s
the year 2077, and after a brutal war with the Scavengers (or “Scavs” as Cruise
describes them) Earth is ravaged, and no longer has a Moon after the Scavs
knocked it out of its orbit. While humans won the war, they lost the Earth,
whose survivors now live on Titan, Saturn’s largest Moon.
Harper has
been assigned to a temporary tech mission on Earth, along with his designated
female partner, the calm, measured, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Victoria is
fond of informing Mission (presumably Mission Control) leader, the constantly
upbeat Sally (Melissa Leo in full good ol’ gal southern twang form), that she
and Harper are “an effective team”.
In a stark
contrast to the ravaged, nuclear-blast crater pocked surface of the Earth - ok,
of the United States, at least - Victoria and Harper live and love on an
idyllic, sleek, elegant and elevated technical base station, complete with
large-screen touch panel computers, and an in-built, clear, spa resort-style, swimming
pool.
While
Victoria gently strokes her computer monitors like the good lady of the house
she is, spouting lots of comic book-style, techno-babble, manly Harper spends
his days flying his nifty, high speed flying craft, accompanied by a bobble
head called “Bob”.
Harper’s
role is to repair the deadly drones; multi-machine gun toting, flying killing
machines designed to protect giant water-extraction units and to exterminate
any remaining Scavs. It is here we first note one of Kosinski’s many references
to earlier sci-fi films.
In fact,
while Kosinski may have openly admitted to his film paying homage to
science-fiction films of the 1970’s, I would argue that, he has mercilessly
ripped off some of sci-fi’s greatest.
The drones
bear more than a striking resemblance in form and function to the lethal, but,
dysfunctional, ED-109 and ED-209 units from the RoboCop film franchise. And,
yes, the drones in this film are dysfunctional.
Then, in one
of the film’s first frustrating implausible inconsistencies, we see Jack flying
over pristine, Ansel Adams-inspired, pristine, green, mountainous landscape, complete
with flowing waterfalls and streams. On a nuclear-ravaged planet? I don’t think
so. And it only gets worse for discerning viewers when Jack arrives at his personal
oasis – a well-maintained log cabin, in the middle of a forest clearing,
complete with low-tech turntable and 1970’s Led Zeppelin LP’s, which he uses as
background music to his game of one-man basketball.
Once back on
his tower base, Jack continues to be troubled by a black and white hued memory
of an encounter at the Empire State Building with a beautiful woman (Olga
Kurylenko, who merely serves as eye-candy in this film). Mind you, Jack should
not have any memories as his and Victoria’s memories were, for reasons
undisclosed, wiped long ago. The scenes filmed on and around the Empire State
Building may remind some viewers of the romantic comedy, “Sleepless in
Seattle”, and the weepy classic, “An Affair to Remember.”
Almost right
on cue, a spacecraft, The Odyssey, carrying
four survivors crash-lands on the planet. Jack reaches the scene of the
crash-landing, but too late to save three of the craft’s passengers,
annihilated by a drone. But, aren’t drones programmed not to kill humans?
Jack, however,
saves the fourth passenger, the gorgeous Ms Kurylenko, who is in a perfect
state of Delta sleep. Of course, Jack and Kurylenko’s character, Julia
Rusakova, immediately recognise each other. What’s more, Julia, who was on a
classified mission, has been asleep for 60 years, and is actually Jack’s wife.
Returning to
the planet’s surface, and while searching for the voice recorder from Julia’s
crashed craft, Jack is knocked unconscious and captured by The Scavs, whose face
masks and guttural sound effects reminded me of the sand people from the first
Star Wars film.
Jack awakes,
chained, and face to face with Freeman’s, cigar-chomping, Beech, who for a
survivor of nuclear holocaust and other presumed horrors, looks remarkably relaxed,
well-fed and fresh-faced. Not a nuclear burn scar to be seen. And, Beech is not
alone. There are literally hundreds of survivors. Men, women, children. All
living underground. Think Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Think The
Omega Man. How these hundreds of people have survived so well and for
so long without any apparent access to clean water and food is never explained
by the film-makers. Cannibalism, perhaps?
You’ve been
lied to, Jack, pronounces Beech. Scavs did not destroy our planet. So, if the
Scavs are not the enemy - just hapless victims themselves - who is?
In a scene
directly ripped off from 1968’s classic Planet of the Apes, Beech warns Jack
to not go into the forbidden, radiation zone, for Jack will not like what he
finds there.
Of course,
Jack and Julia fly into the forbidden zone where they find … another Jack
Harper. This Jack, however, wears the number, 52. That’s Tech 52 to the other
Jack Harper’s Tech 49 designation. A Jack 49 vs Jack 52 fight ensues. Jack 49
subdues Jack 52 and hog-ties him, but not before Julia is shot by Jack 52.
Cue a
meaningless and extended chase sequence where Jack and the injured Julia flying
in their machine, are pursued through narrow canyons by a squadron of killer
drones. Another direct rip-off. This time, that extended hovercar chase
sequence through the canyons, in the dreadful Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom
Menace.
Jack and
Julia prevail against their killer drone rivals. They then discover cloud base
52, and … another Victoria. It’s now obvious that Victoria, and Jack are clones.
But, who has cloned them? And why?
It
transpires, according to Beech that, a legion of soulless Jacks were sent to
Earth on a seek and destroy humanity mission. But, we still have no idea who
the enemy is. And what their intent is. The answer must be on the voice
recorder from the Odyssey spacecraft. And, it is.
Julia, Jack
and Victoria were members of a crew on the spacecraft Odyssey, sent 60 years earlier to explore an unidentified alien,
pyramidal structure in space. That structure is The Tet. While Jack and Victoria were captured by The Tet
structure, Julia and the other members of the Odyssey were left to drift in
space, a la Ripley at the opening of the film Aliens.
It’s “clear”
now who the enemy is, who has been cloning Jack, and Victoria, who has been
exterminating the humans, ravaging the Earth, and stealing the Earth’s precious
resources. It’s The Tet.
Time for
Jack to concoct a plan to board The Tet pyramid and destroy it. Jack informs
Sally that, he is bringing a prisoner, Julia, on board.
In a scene directly
ripped off from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, when The Enterprise enters the
enormous cloud structure that houses the VGER craft, and complete with the same
sound effects from that film, Jack’s tiny craft enters the giant Tet. What he
finds are millions of … Jack and Victoria clones. All beautifully housed under
perspex domes. Cue visual references to The Matrix.
There is no
Sally. Only Sally’s “voice”. And a giant, throbbing red orb. This is the alien
menace? The formless “force” that has destroyed our precious Earth?
Did the creators
of this film not learn anything from the abject failures of the films Fantastic
Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Green Lantern? Film-going
audiences demand credible villains to be pitted against their heroes. Not amorphous
clouds. And certainly not giant pyramidal structures with red orbs, from parts
unknown, whose intentions are undeclared.
When we last
saw Cruise in sci-fi mode he starred in the vastly superior, 2005 Spielberg version of War
of the Worlds, based on HG Wells’s classic novel. That movie had a visible,
three-limbed alien enemy, some heart, and to quote Morgan Freeman – who narrates
the opening lines for War of the Worlds – some humanity.
Oblivion is deeply flawed, lacking focus, any clearly discernible message,
and dramatic intent. I doubt that even Cruise’s mega-wattage star power will save this film
at the box office.
