Rating of
2.5/4
Blatantly Derivative
Looneymanthegreat - wrote on 04/25/13
Oblivion is basically just a random hodgepodge of ideas, scenes and twists from the some of the most important Sci-Fi films of the past fifty years. Unless the most recent science fiction film you’ve seen is A Trip to The Moon, this probably won’t do much for you.
Oblivion was directed by Joseph Kosinski, the guy who directed Tron: Legacy and he brings the same level of visual grandeur and visual originality to this movie. Unfortunately Oblivion doesn’t have the inventiveness or energetic pacing of Tron, and even after a solid first act quickly gets bogged down by an exhaustingly disappointing series of twists and action sequences.
I imagine they created some sort of famous science fiction flick wheel of fortune to determine each plot point and visual after they ran out of ideas. They threw in the clone from Moon, and the first half of the film is basically a remake of Wall-e but with humans. By the time the third act has come around almost every scene reminds me of some better Sci-Fi film.
All in all Oblivion isn’t horrible or anything, it’s just way to derivative to be that entertaining. I usually don’t mind a movie taking from other movies, but this flick is just so blatant in how it rip-offs other movies and doesn’t bring anything new to the table to go along with the old tropes.
I’d check this one out if you’re a die-hard Cruise fan or are more interested in VFX then plot, but other then that I can’t imagine anyone getting much out of it.
