Oblivion

I think someone is going to have to face some copyright infringement charges soon and if they don't it's a damn shame. Instead of reviewing this movie, I could review about five others, but I'll keep it simple.

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is a technician working on Earth sixty years after a race called Scavengers (Scavs, for short) destroyed the Moon and sent the world into disarray. Tsunamis and earthquakes wiped out most of the population, with the rest escaping to a space station (almost like the Death Star), called the Tet. He lives in a tower with his communications officer, and implied lover, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough).

Harper's main job is to maintain drones that patrol the area around massive harvesters, which turn sea water into fusion energy. Whilst out on these missions, he routinely has run ins with Scavs. One day whilst chilling out in his hideaway, he sees a crashing spaceship, where he finds human survivors. One of them is a woman from the dreams he has been having. Turns out this is his wife, Julia (Olga Kurylenko). They are then attacked by Scavs and taken back to their stronghold.

When they get there, the Scavs reveal themselves to be regular humans and that the drones are actually there to wipe out humans. We meet their leader, Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman), and his lieutenant, Sykes (Nickolaj Coster-Waldau). Beech initially tries to get Jack to reprogram a drone with a bomb to destroy the Tet. After Jack refuses, Beech tells him to go into the radiation zone for an explanation. Jack and Julia go there only to find a clone of Jack. We find out that there a thousands of Jack Harper and that they really destroyed the Earth.

Jack decides to go back and help the humans destroy the Tet, but not before a big battle that claims the life of Beech. Both Beech and Jack go and destroy the Tet.

Now unless you have seen a lot of sci-fi movies you may not see the copyright problems. Lucky for you, I'm here. This is all just a big budget remake of the 2009 independent film Moon. In that, an engineer on the Moon is weeks away from coming home. His main task is the maintenance of harvesters that extract Helium 3, a clean energy power, from the surface of the Moon and send it back to an overpopulated Earth. Oblivion just reversed that to take it to a Death Star. As the film progresses, we find out that the main character is just one of many clones that gets recycled every three years. Oblivion just does this on a larger scale.

Last week, I read a funny article on HuffPost that showed the similarities between the Oblivion poster and the poster for Top Gun. I thought it was funny and it soon left my mind. The parallels didn't stop there. Jack Harper also is an ace fighter pilot, only this movie lacked Val Kilmer and a volleyball. Keen eyes will spot references to Planet of the Apes and Alien as well.

Now, the acting. Tom Cruise seemed very hollow and distracted in this movie. It's as if the Tripods took it out of him in his last sci-fi film. I am normally a big fan of Olga Kurylenko, but I wasn't too keen on her performance this time around.

Morgan Freeman did his job as an exposition teller and ended the movie in a big bad way. Nickolaj Coster-Waldau (the Kingslayer himself, Jamie Lannister), seemed to be playing future Jamie Lannister with a high power rifle and Academy Award Winner Melissa Leo wasted her talents for a couple of minutes.

This movie did look good though. Lots of great landscapes and worn down monuments we all know. I had a good debate with my friend about whether it was all green screen, but we ended in a stalemate.

Verdict: A blatant rip off of others that came before. I would only really watch for the good CGI. Not too much action.