Oblivion
From a screenplay by Karl Gajdusek and Michael deBruyn and produced by Joseph Kosinski, Oblivion is a 2013 American post-apocalyptic science fiction film starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Melissa Leo in supporting roles.
The film is a “love story” set in 2077 on an Earth devastated by an alien war and is based on Kosinski’s unpublished graphic novel of the same name. A maintenance technician on the verge of finishing his mission finds a woman who survived a space ship crash, leading him to question his purpose and learn the truth about the war.
On March 26, 2013, Oblivion had its world premiere in Buenos Aires. On April 19, Universal Pictures released the film in theaters. 10] The film received mixed reviews from critics and made $286 million worldwide on a $120 million production budget.
Plot
In 2017, aliens who go by the name of Scavengers attack Earth and destroy the Moon, causing natural disasters all over the world. Although humanity wins the war using nuclear weapons, Earth is left uninhabitable.
Except for Unit 49—technician Jack and his communications officer Victoria—who are scheduled to join them in two weeks, the remaining humans have moved to a colony on Saturn’s moon Titan sixty years later. The pair are in charge of hydro rigs that turn seawater into fusion energy for the Tet, the last spaceship carrying a human colony.
Jack has recurring dreams about an unknown woman, despite the fact that he and Victoria are romantically involved and have had their memories erased for security reasons. Additionally, he secretly visits a verdant valley where he has constructed a lakeside cabin and collects ancient artifacts.
Scavengers nearly capture Jack while he is looking into a missing autonomous, highly advanced, and heavily armed drone. He finds out later that the Scavengers are sending a signal into space. At the coordinates of the signal, a NASA pod lands with five people suspended in time, including the woman from Jack’s dreams.
Jack saves the last pod and transports the unconscious woman to the base of Unit 49 after a drone destroys four of the pods. Jack and Victoria discover that Julia has been in stasis aboard the Odyssey spaceship since 2017 after reviving her. The flight recorder from the ship must be recovered, Julia insists.
She and Jack, on the other hand, are taken into the Raven Rock Mountain Complex by Scavengers. Malcolm, their leader, reveals that the Scavengers are actually human survivors. Jack must reprogram a captured drone in order for Malcolm to deliver a nuclear bomb made from Odyssey’s reactor to the Tet.
When Jack refuses, Malcolm gives him and Julia away and tells him to look for the truth in the radiation zone, which is supposed to be dangerous and closed to everyone. Jack begins to regain some of his memories as Julia helps him remember that she is his wife. Victoria tells Sally, the Tet’s mission controller, when they get back to Unit 49 that she and Jack are no longer an “effective team.”
Victoria is killed when a concealed drone is activated. The drone is destroyed by Jack and Julia, but their aircraft crashes inside the radiation zone. There, “Jack-52,” a different version of Jack, arrives to fix the drone. Despite Julia’s serious injuries, Jack manages to subdue him. Jack enters Unit 52 by pretending to be his clone, meets Victoria-52, and steals Julia’s medical supplies. They have sex while they rest at his cabin.
Malcolm reveals the truth at Raven Rock: the Tet is an alien machine intelligence stealing Earth’s resources and humanity lost the war. The Tet used thousands of brainwashed clones of astronaut Jack Harper to kill the remaining humans after the Moon was destroyed. When Malcolm saw Jack take an interest in a discarded book, he realized that these clones might still be human after all.
The captured drone is reprogrammed by Jack, but it is destroyed by other drones in a surprise attack, leaving Malcolm with serious injuries. Julia enters a stasis pod after Jack and Julia agree to carry out the bomb’s delivery on their own. During the journey, Jack listens to the Odyssey’s flight recorder, which reveals that Victoria and the original Jack Harper were astronauts sent to investigate Titan before the Tet attacked.
Jack ejected the remaining crew, including Julia, into stasis pods to protect them before the two were captured. By claiming that he is delivering Julia as instructed, Jack gains access to the Tet. Malcolm, on the other hand, is dying inside the stasis pod. The Tet and themselves are destroyed when the bomb is detonated by Jack and Malcolm.
Later, Julia wakes up at the cabin. Julia and the daughter of her and Jack now reside there three years later. Along with Jack-52, who has begun regaining fragments of his own lost identity, an assortment of survivors from Raven Rock arrive.
Cast
Credit – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblivion_(2013_film)#Cast
- Tom Cruise as Jack Harper—Tech 49, a technician who works to repair drones on Earth and questions his mission. Originally, he was the American commander of a mission en route to Titan who was captured by the Tet and cloned to fight humanity. Cruise also plays Jack Harper—Tech 52, a clone who seeks out Julia after the destruction of the Tet.
- Morgan Freeman as Malcolm Beech, an American veteran soldier and leader of a large community of scavengers, the human survivors of the alien Tet’s attacks.
- Olga Kurylenko as Julia Rusakova Harper, Jack’s wife and a Russian crew member on the Odyssey, who was sent back towards Earth by her husband to protect her from the initial contact with the Tet.
- Andrea Riseborough as Victoria “Vika” Olsen, Jack’s communications partner and housemate. Originally, she was the British co-pilot of Jack’s mission to Titan who was captured and cloned to assist in the Tet’s war on humanity. Riseborough also plays a clone of Vika who Jack misleads to obtain medical supplies.
- Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Sergeant Sykes, the main military commander of Beech’s community of scavengers who is skeptical of Jack at first.
- Melissa Leo as the Tet, an alien artificial intelligence seeking to acquire Earth’s natural resources and wipe out humanity. Leo also plays Sally, the mission director of Jack and Julia’s mission to Titan; her likeness was copied by the Tet to serve as its visual and auditory representation.
- Zoë Bell as Kara, a soldier and member of the scavengers.
Our General Review
Oblivion (2013): A Sci-Fi Rollercoaster That’s Equal Parts Dazzling and “Wait, What Just Happened?”
Buckle up, space cadets, because Oblivion (2013), directed by Joseph Kosinski, is a wild ride through a post-apocalyptic wonderland that’s as shiny as a freshly polished spaceship and occasionally as confusing as trying to assemble IKEA furniture in zero gravity. Starring Tom Cruise (because who else would save the world while sprinting at Mach 5?), this flick is a visual feast, a narrative maze, and a love letter to sci-fi fans who don’t mind a few plot holes as long as the explosions are pretty. Let’s dive into this 124-minute odyssey with the enthusiasm of a kid discovering a new toy on Christmas morning and the skepticism of someone who’s seen one too many “chosen one” tropes.
The General Gist: A Shiny Apocalypse with Tom Cruise Doing Tom Cruise Things
Picture this: Earth, 2077. The planet’s been trashed harder than a frat house after a kegger. The moon’s been blown to bits (rude), humanity’s mostly fled to a space station called the Tet, and Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), our resident fix-it guy, is zipping around in a bubble-shaped spaceship, repairing drones and flirting with his comms officer, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), while they both report to a mysterious boss named Sally (Melissa Leo, channeling her inner Siri).
Jack’s got a cushy gig: fix drones, dodge alien scavengers, and enjoy panoramic views of a ruined Earth that’s somehow still gorgeous. But—plot twist!—things aren’t what they seem. Enter a mysterious woman in a crash-landed pod (Olga Kurylenko), a grizzled rebel leader (Morgan Freeman, because every sci-fi needs a wise Morgan Freeman), and a whole lotta “who am I?” existential crises.
Oblivion is what happens when you throw Wall-E, The Matrix, and Moon into a blender, add a dash of Tom Cruise’s trademark intensity, and set the whole thing to a thumping M83 soundtrack. It’s a film that’s 60% eye candy, 30% “huh?”, and 10% pure, unadulterated Cruise charisma. Is it perfect? Nope. Is it fun? Oh, you bet your futuristic jetpack it is.
The Good: Visuals That’ll Make Your Eyeballs Do a Happy Dance
Let’s start with the visuals, because Oblivion is prettier than a sunset on a planet with two suns. Kosinski, the guy who brought us Tron: Legacy, knows how to make a movie look like a billion bucks (or at least the $120 million budget). The landscapes—crumbling cities swallowed by sand, canyons that scream “epic adventure,” and a sky that’s all moody blues and oranges—are so stunning you’ll forget the plot’s occasional nonsense.
Jack’s bubble ship? Sleek enough to make Elon Musk jealous. The drones? Menacing spheres that look like they were designed by Apple’s evil twin. And that sky tower where Jack and Victoria live? It’s like a minimalist Airbnb in the clouds, complete with a pool that screams “Instagram me.”
The action sequences are pure adrenaline. Whether Jack’s dodging drone lasers or zooming through canyons like a spacefaring Top Gun, the set pieces are crisp, thrilling, and choreographed with the precision of a Broadway musical. And let’s not forget the soundtrack by M83, which is so epic it could make a grocery list sound like the climax of Lord of the Rings. Every time that synth kicks in, you’re ready to fist-pump and declare yourself the savior of humanity.
Tom Cruise, as always, is the human equivalent of an energy drink. The man doesn’t just act—he commits. Whether he’s sprinting from explosions, gazing soulfully into the distance, or delivering lines like “I’m Jack Harper, and I’m the last man on Earth” with maximum gravitas, Cruise carries the film like Atlas holding up the world. Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko hold their own, too, with Riseborough’s Victoria radiating quiet intensity and Kurylenko’s Julia serving as the emotional heart of the story. And Morgan Freeman? He’s basically playing God in sunglasses, and we’re here for it.
The Not-So-Good: Plot Holes You Could Fly a Spaceship Through
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room—or rather, the alien in the spaceship. The plot. Oh boy, the plot. Oblivion wants to be a brainy sci-fi thriller, but sometimes it feels like it’s trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube with half the stickers missing. Without spoiling too much, let’s just say the story throws in twists faster than a soap opera, and not all of them land. You’ll find yourself asking questions like: Why do the drones have such bad aim? How does Jack know how to do everything? And why does the Tet look like it was designed by a geometry teacher with a grudge?
The film borrows heavily from other sci-fi classics, and while it wears its influences proudly, it sometimes feels like a cover band rather than an original artist. The pacing can drag in the middle, especially when the film leans into exposition instead of letting us figure things out. And some of the dialogue? Let’s just say it’s cheesier than a wheel of Gouda. Lines like “We’re the last of a dying breed” or “Everything you know is a lie” are delivered with such earnestness you can’t help but chuckle.
Also, the scavengers (the alien baddies) are a bit underdeveloped. They’re supposed to be terrifying, but they mostly skulk around in the shadows like grumpy teenagers at a family reunion. A little more backstory would’ve gone a long way.
The Joyful Bits: Why Oblivion Still Wins Our Hearts
Despite its flaws, Oblivion is a blast because it embraces its sci-fi weirdness with open arms. It’s not afraid to be big, bold, and a little ridiculous. There’s a scene where Jack listens to classic rock on a vinyl record in a hidden cabin stocked with nostalgic goodies—sunglasses, a baseball cap, a copy of A Tale of Two Cities—and it’s so delightfully random you can’t help but grin. The film’s got heart, too, especially in the quieter moments where Jack grapples with memories that don’t quite add up. It’s like watching a puppy try to solve a puzzle: confusing, but adorable.
The romance angle, while not groundbreaking, has enough chemistry to keep you invested. Cruise and Kurylenko have a sweet, understated connection that grounds the film’s wilder moments. And the humor—intentional or not—is gold. Whether it’s Jack quipping at a drone or Sally’s overly chipper “Are you still an effective team?” (delivered like a passive-aggressive HR manager), there’s plenty to laugh at.
Who’s This For?
Oblivion is for anyone who loves sci-fi that doesn’t take itself too seriously. If you’re a fan of Blade Runner’s aesthetics, The Matrix’s mind-bending twists, or just Tom Cruise doing his “I’m gonna save the world” shtick, this movie’s got your name on it. It’s also perfect for anyone who wants to marvel at gorgeous visuals while munching popcorn and whispering, “Wait, what?” to their friend every 20 minutes.
Final Verdict: A Flawed But Lovable Space Romp
Oblivion is like a shiny new spaceship with a few loose bolts. It’s got breathtaking visuals, a killer soundtrack, and enough Tom Cruise energy to power a small planet. Sure, the plot occasionally feels like it was written by an AI with a penchant for melodrama, and the twists might leave you scratching your head. But who cares when you’re having this much fun? It’s a movie that invites you to strap in, enjoy the ride, and not overthink the physics of it all.
So, grab your futuristic sunglasses, crank up some M83, and give Oblivion a spin. It’s not perfect, but it’s got enough heart, style, and Cruise-ian swagger to make you forgive its quirks. In the immortal words of Jack Harper (probably): “Let’s go fix some drones and save the world—again!”
Rating: 7.5/10 bubble ships. A visual stunner with a side of sci-fi silliness that’s impossible not to enjoy.
People Review (Taken From Google)
