Oblivion (2013)

Genre : SF
Country : USA

Cast :
Tom Cruise : Jack
Olga Kurylenko : Julia
Morgan Freeman : Beech

Director :
Joseph Kosinski

Summary
One of the few remaining drone repairmen assigned to Earth, its surface devastated after decades of war with the alien Scavs, discovers a crashed spacecraft with contents that bring into question everything he believed about the war, and may even put the fate of mankind in his hands.

My opinion

This was once again a visually stunning movie. At times I was watching it breathlessly and greatly enjoyed the apocalyptic images of the desolate landscapes and that pure piece of nature among all the chaos.

Sure, you will recognize things from other films or books. But you can say about most movies that it's a faint decoction of yet another movie. Granted ! If on a yearly base there would come out a number of solid SF movies like Space Odyssey 2001, Aliens, Star Wars, The Fly, Mad Max, Prometheus ... then I would understand. But they are (as in the horror genre) terribly sparse. They could have made a dead simple put-your-brains-into-neutral movie. Well, this wasn't such a film. Or they could have made it shorter and stuffed it with a lot of fast eye-catching action. But then that would have been probably a bit to much. And so it'll never be okay for anybody.

I found the portrayed view of an apocalyptic world very strong. The high-tech environment, the interiors, the buildings, vehicles and futuristic information technology looked brilliantly. And indeed, it really had an Apple feeling in all the designs. The control console they used, looked like a mega-XXL version of the iPad.

The story, the final state of affairs, the twists, the explanation of how it came to this situation, unfold at a slow (sometimes too slow) way, but that's what I liked about this movie. The slow manner of telling the complete story instead of rattling off all facts in a speedy pace.

I'm not a huge fan of Tom Cruise, but to be honest, he didn't annoy me that much for once. He did what he had to do, was enjoying himself once more in a "Mission Impossible" kind of way and was sometimes very convincing. Andrea Riseborough did much better than in "Welcome to the Punch" and also acted as a cloned version.
Freeman had a limited role, but was again the central character when the first surprise appeared.

I have to admit , the ending felt like "Independence Day" and it's unbelievable that such a high-tech and sophisticated civilization couldn't have intercepted this.
For the rest ... as SF fan they can dish up some more movies like this annually.