Oblivion

Rating: 7.7/10

Film Class: A

Genre: Sci-Fi

A battered Planet Earth remains, where most of its human habitants were wiped out by an invading alien species. The remaining survivors now reside in a space station. Jack and his partner were tasked to protect the power stations which extract Earth's remaining resources that powers up the space station, and also to maintain the drones which protect the power stations. However, when their drones keep disappearing and one of their power stations destroyed, it's up to Jack to hunt down the remaining alien survivors still on Earth and uncover their real motive.

I had thought Oblivion was just another modern day post-apocalytic tale, but it turned out to be a true-blue (or white since the color theme for this movie is obviously white) sci-fi action flick. It had great graphics, realistic setting, story packed a pow wow, and the only thing it fell flat on was the scripting. Not a major issue though, I easily overlooked the bad (extremely bad) scripting cos of the plot.

There wasn't many main cast, and a whole lot of Tom Cruise in this. It was refreshing to see "Jamie Lanister", from Game of Thrones (ok his actual name is Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and he did good whatever little screentime he had. Even for Morgan Freeman, his few main appearances I believe was intended to add extra "coolness" to the film. 

Both female leads were gorgeous, literally, especially Olga Kurylenko (who gained popularity after being cast as the Bond girl). There was something about her this one, she made the film "complete", despite being given her bad lines. A particularly memorable scene was when she was in this shuttle plane with Tom Cruise and they had to battle some drones (3 to be exact). There was something very corny and unconvincing about both their acting, even a top-rated actor like Tom Cruise lost some points there, but I can only imagine how silly they must have felt facing a green screen, digging deep and trying hard to express whatever facial emotions they could churn out - which needless to say, failed terribly. 

The first 20 mins or so felt like a horror movie, and there was a hugh twist in the storyline. It wasn't original though, the first thing that came to my mind when the twist hit was that it ressembled another sci-fi movie, the title I wouldn't disclose here. However, it wasn't the originality but the impact of the twist which made it for me. For you curious folks out there, a hint would be that the title of the other movie has something to do with what is "broken" (ok, to be less subtle, destroyed - not the power stations) is in this film. 

Coincidentally, Tom Cruise's name is Jack Harper is in this film, and in his most recent film Jack Reacher, he starred as, Jack Reacher (duh). Perhaps there's something Jack about Tom, because he does fit the name, somehow... and both movies were pretty awesome. 

It turned out way better than I had expected, because the story nailed it. A must watch for sci-fi movie fans! Easily one of the better sci-fi films out there!