Oblivion

Oblivion directed by Joseph Kosinski is a sci-fi movie set a few years after aliens invaded Earth, causing us to use our nuclear weapons and destroy our planet. Luckily, we won the war (or did we?) but we have had to move to Saturn's moon, Titan. The main character in the movie is Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and he is a drone repairman. He only has two weeks left of this job, then he gets to go to Titan with his partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Well, as long as he doesn't mess anything up.

Everyday, Jack gets to go down to Earth on a fancy flying machine and make sure everything is running properly on the surface. He repairs any drones that the remaining aliens, or Scavs, have taken down during the night and kills any Scavs that he finds. Victoria stays up in the tower and watches everything he does on a screen, alerting him of coming danger. She's also in contact with Mission Control this whole time - Sally.

The problem is, Jack sometimes has dreams about a girl, dreams that he thinks are memories. Five years ago, he had his memory wiped so he doesn't remember anything before the invasion - but he remembers this girl. And boy is he in for a surprise. One of his days down on the surface, he finds that the Scavs have set up a signaling device that is sending a signal off planet. He destroys the device, but later that evening, a ship comes crashing down to the surface. He of course goes to investigate, and finds that the crashed ship hold not Scavs, but humans! And one of those humans is the girl from his dreams! Dun dun dun.

Victoria had alerted Control about the ship and drones were on their way to destroy any survivors. These survivors were in freeze-sleep or whatever you call it, and had been for sixty years. So, they are sleeping in coffin looking things that have been keeping them alive. The drones come and start blowing up the other survivors. Jack manages to save the girl of his dreams though by standing up to the drone, risking getting blown to smithereens. Then he brings her up to the tower to Victoria and she saves her life. But you can tell Victoria is uneasy about it. I should note, Victoria and Jack are lovers as well as partners at this point. She encourages Jack to turn the girl into Control, but instead the next morning, he takes the girl, Julia, down to earth so she can get her flight record and they can see what happened to them. But, things don't go according to plan.

While at the crash site, Julia and Jack are taken by Scavs. Well, that's what they appear to be, but after Jack gets there, he learns that they are actually human too. And nothing is really making sense to him. The leader of this group, Beech (Morgan Freeman) tells him that Titan doesn't exist and that the Tet (the supposed space station) is the alien object that destroyed the Earth. He wants Jack to program the drone they have captured to go to the Tet, carrying enough fuel packs to make a sizable bomb. But Jack isn't convinced. He encourages him to go into the radiation zone so he can figure some stuff. Instead Jack takes Julia back up to the tower but Victoria won't let them inside because she is jealous of Julia mostly. She tells Sally that her and Jack are no longer an effective team. So a drone comes to kill them. It does kill Victoria but Julia manages to shoot the drone down with the ship and save Jack.

Then they go to the radiation zone. And Jack sees himself. A clone of him doing exactly what he does. That's what it takes to convince him something is wrong. Julia then collapses because she was shot by a drone. So, Jack fights his clone, steals his airplane thing, and goes back to his tower. Stealing that med pack, after an awkward confrontation with another Victoria, he goes back, saves Julia, and returns to Beech. He's agreed to program the drone to deliver the bomb.

The problem is, Mission is onto them. The second Victoria reported that Jack went missing, so they send drones that come and attempt to destroy the colony of humans. The drone is destroyed. They need another way to deliver the bomb.

I'm not going to give away the ending on this one, because I think it's lovely. And I want everyone to experience it first hand.

The acting in this movie was great. I LOVE Tom Cruise. I don't think he's particularly attractive or anything, but he does a pretty good job. In Sci-Fi movies especially (I adore Minority Report). And his love interest in this movie is talented too. I loved her in Quantum of Solace, opposite Daniel Craig, and she didn't disappoint here either. And of course, Morgan Freeman. Who doesn't love this man? He's truly fabulous in this movie, as in every other movie he's in.

I liked the story in this movie. It was more a love story than anything else. Which should come as no surprise, because most movies are. Let's face it, love is really what life is all about (not just in movies). To tell yourself different is just lying to yourself. And cloning always intrigues me. It's a confusing and fascinating simultaneously. I don't think it's something that should ever be done, in the real world. But it's good movie material. Can be funny or just add enough extra to a Sci-Fi movie to set it apart from the rest. I also liked that even though the world was apparently destroyed and couldn't support healthy life because of the radiation, Jack still couldn't really bear the thought of leaving. Do I believe in life elsewhere? Absolutely. Would I ever leave my home planet? No way. I think there is something special about Jack for not giving up on his home. Something I think a lot of people I know need to work on. Just because it's not doing so great doesn't mean you just get to cast it aside and move on to what you assume are bigger and better things. There is a reason we are here and not somewhere else, after all. You can read into that as much as you would like. =)

I'm done with that tangent now. My conclusion is: this movie is lovely. Watch it.

I give it an 8 out of 10.

As always, thank you for reading. Please, watch Oblivion and share your comments below.