Oblivion

I guess you might call "Oblivion" the first big sci-fi flick for the summer which starts about the first week in May. I mean, look what's coming: "Iron Man 3", "Star Trek: Into Darkness", "Pacific Rim", "World War Z". So this is great fodder for what is to come.

In the year 2077, in a post-apocalyptic New York, Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) works as a security drone repairman on an earth left empty and devastated after a war with aliens known as Scavs. Jack and fellow scientist, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) have two weeks before their mission ends and they join their fellow survivors on a faraway colony. However Jack's concept of reality comes crashing down after he rescues a beautiful stranger, Julia (Olga Kurylenko) from a downed spacecraft. The woman's arrival and a nomad Jack encounters, Beech (Morgan Freeman) triggers a chain of events that culminates in Jack's nearly single-handed battle to save mankind.

Others to round out the cast are Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Sykes, Beech's right hand man, Melissa Leo as Sally, the so-called 'brains' of the system, and Zoe Bell as Kara.

This was well paced with grit by director Joseph Kosinski ("TRON: Legacy" '10). This guy doesn't have a ton of feature film directing, but since he co-wrote this and it was based on the comic book co-created by him, it was a natural move to put him in the driver's seat and I believe that paid off. Where the slip up occurs is in the writing. This was written by Kosinski, Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt based on the comic book by Kosinski and Arvid Nelson. Maybe I didn't quite get it, but I'm not sure why these two (Jack and Victoria) were being conned by those powers that be headed up by Sally. Why were they 'in the dark'? This is where it gets a bit cerebral, kind of like "The Matrix". You gotta follow along very closely, lest you miss the meaning. Plus, it took some time for this to get off the ground. Maybe they could have used more of this slow time to explain more of where they were really going with this. Or maybe I was just having a bad day. Who knows.

Don't get me wrong, this wasn't awful, it had an interesting premise, it just got confusing along the way. The visuals were certainly seamless as was the devastating look the crew was able to give this. I would recommend anyone to see this, if only to see it on the big screen, even in IMAX if you can. The one thing I can say is that this will leave one scratching their heads and pondering about it well after the end credits roll.

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                       Rated: PG-13                       125mins.