Cruise destroys the box office with Oblivion
Tom Cruise is a machine. I am pretty certain of that at this
point. With the exception of the box office stumble that was Rock of Ages,
Cruise consistently puts out hit after hit after hit. There are very few actors
that are 50+ that are still believable as a legitimate actions star…and he is
the best of the best. Yet there are still some people out there that will
refuse to see this movie based off of the baseless claim that you can’t enjoy a
Tom Cruise movie because “he’s weird” or “I don’t agree with his lifestyle”.
Look, I don’t agree with Randy Quaid and his lifestyle choices or his attempt
to hide in Canada to escape U.S. prosecution for illegally “squatting” and
skipping bail, but that doesn’t mean I don’t watch (and enjoy) him as Cousin
Eddie every Christmas in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The point I’m
trying to make is that if you don’t watch this movie based off of not liking
the actor’s life choices, you are missing out on an amazing Sci-Fi film.
Storyline: Many years ago Earth was attacked. Humans were victorious
in a battle with an invading alien force that left their planet virtually uninhabitable.
Jack (Cruise) is part of a two person “clean up” team that is stationed on
Earth and must oversee the last extractions of Earth’s resources that will be used
to help repopulate a neighboring moon where the remaining Earth survivors are
said to be currently living. But when “holes” begin to appear in the logic of
their daily orders, and Jack begins to investigate, he finds that there is more
to fear than he ever thought possible.
I have to go on record here and say that this is probably
one of my favorite modern Sci-Fi movies. Seriously. I liked it that much. Not
only is the film beautifully stylized, and the acting is top notch, but there
are two pretty solid twists in the story that make for a REALLY interesting and
entertaining journey for the characters and the viewers. While I can’t give
away too much without spoiling the little surprises that this movie offers, I
can say that one of them was a little telegraphed (if you are really paying
attention to the scenes) but one (and maybe one other) is a bit of a shock and
I didn’t think that the movie would take that specific route with the story. Obviously,
as you can tell, the final product completely worked for me and I absolutely
LOVED it.
Worth the admission? Absolutely! Not only that, but I will
be buying it the second that it hits BluRay. It was that good. Tom Cruise and
Morgan Freeman are both great in their roles and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (from
Game of Thrones) gives a small but surprisingly enjoyable performance as Sykes.
Do yourself a favor and check it out!
Great review. Not many surprises, unless you haven’t seen a single sci-fi flick in your entire life.
ReplyDeleteThe one "twist" that I picked up on pretty quick was with the control room operator. Obviously, by paying attention to the morning messages, you can tell that something is off there. And I was fairly certain that what was being warned against in the forbidden zones was bogus...but I wasn't expecting him to find what he found. That, I thought, was an odd (but cool) route that the movie took. Made it stand out as more than just a simple Alien vs Human movie.
DeleteThe final stand off was pretty good too. Sure, by that point I had figured it all out, but to see the backstory of the characters told was a better payoff than I thought it would be.
I thought the very end was a litttttle cheesy and would have been better without 52 popping back up, but still....not too shabby .