Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013)

[tabuno]

It's interesting how depressed the CinemaScore of B- is, though IMDb has it at 7.2. The overall tone of the movie isn't a summer blockbuster American ending, but a bittersweet and likely confusing one to American men and perhaps even more to women. What's fascinating about this storyline that while not quite original as similar themes readily are available from television's Outer Limits, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, even Fringe, is it's prominence place in an mainstream movie. Even though Space Cowboys (2000) is also bittersweet at the end, Oblivion offers its audience with a questionable relational ending that can be interpreted several ways, not always happily for some, but subtly and admirably acceptable to others. Like the updated Solaris (2002) or more recently Inception (2010), and maybe even Somewhere in Time (1970) the audience is presented with a mixed experience of emotional offerings, instead of the more solid black and white clarity of something like Men in Black (1997) and even to some extent The Bourne Supremacy (2004).

What Oblivion offers is a solid science fiction theme and raised relevant moral and relational questions regarding technology and life which is actually something that the original Star Trek television series (1960) did so well and which makes Oblivion definitely a cut above most sci fi movies. A very balanced, substantive presentation of a profusion of sci fi ideas.

[cinemabon]

I just finished watching the HBO special on the making of "Oblivion." Kosinski was a great fan of Stanley Kubrick and read up on how Kubrick filmed "2001." He wanted to duplicate the realism Kubrick had in the opening with the "Dawn of Man" sequence. So he built the entire "house in the sky" platform where Jack and Vickie live, placing a gigantic wall of screens behind them and then projecting images of different skies over the actors and the set but using lighting in the foreground to wash out the projection. The result is a beautiful image that is also very realistic. Since we have so many admirers of Kubrick on this site (including me), I thought I'd mention it.

Cruise brings number one to the weekend box office, his first in several years.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=103242

http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3672&p=.htm

[tabuno]

Now that Kubrick has been brought up, it really conforms to the sensibility of the feeling and look of the station in Oblivion. I just didn't have a specific reference to it until now. Such careful visceral design is so important to distinguish it from Total Recall and how the emotional relationship at the beginning of Oblivion is solidly etched into reality which is the paradox here, but it is also sustained further into the movie unlike Total Recall which allows for a much more humanistic undertone, unlike the more black and white, two-dimensional treatment so often offered in earlier movie incarnations.

[cinemabon]

The realism didn't end there. Kosinski had a special motorbike built for the film that could fit into the back of the space "bubble" ship (which they actually built a non-flying version made of metal and glass). Cruise was instructed on how to take it from the back of the ship, open it up and drive it. The shots on "wasted" earth were actually in Ice Land on areas covered in volcanic ash over the past few years that devastated a large portion of farmland. Cruise did all of the motorbike work on his own and most of the stunt work as well, saying: "What good is a shot if you have to cover up the guy's face." He even walked to the edge of a precipice in the film and sat on the end of a rock formation, although for insurance purposes, they attached a safety wire to him that was later digitally removed.

In comparing "Oblivion" to "Total Recall" I take it you are comparing the remake of "Total Recall" with Colin Farrell and not the Schwarzenegger version. "Phone Booth" and "Miami Vice" put me off Farrell so I missed it; rare for me because I love science fiction. And what black and white incarnations did you refer? I can't recall a single science fiction film made in black and white unless you count "Dr. Strangelove" as science fiction or you go waaaaay back to the Flash Gordon serials.

[Chris Knipp]

Interesting information, guys. Cruise still does the job, for sure.

I've just posted reviews of two strong festival films with a strong sense of mood and beautiful visuals, the Colombian LA SIRGA and the Turkish PRESENT TENSE. I hope you'll go to the San Francisco International Film Festival Filmleaf Forums thread and connect to them, and all the earlier ones I've written in recent weeks.

More to come. And watch for my full reviews of some of the coming theater releases, including WHAT MAISIE KNEW and Richard Linklater's BEFORE MIDNIGHT, French animated charmer ERNEST & CELESTINE, THE KINGS OF SUMMER, MUSEUM HOURS, and more.

[Chris Knipp]

OBLIVION was released six weeks ago so there's hardly any point in reviewing it now, but I have finally seen it. Here are my reactions.

Joseph Kosinski: OBLIVION (2013)


OLGA KURYLENKO AND TOM CRUISE IN OBLIVION

Visuals almost worthy of Kubrick; a script not up to that level

Yes, Oblivion has had mixed reviews; we've had time enough to see that. And why should this be? For the obvious reason that will quickly emerge if you skim some of the press. Kosinski's film is visually superb, a gleamingly perfect blend of CGI and humans. If you collect stunning sci-fi movie images, you may need to see it. It aspires to greatness in its narrative, however, but winds up only with a lot of loose ends.

To my mind the really worthy sci-fi films are few and far between, and glorious special effects enhance a good story but do not replace it. In fact simpler means may help to put over a good story. This was shown with Duncan Jones's similarly themed 2009 debut film Moon, also about someone doing maintenance on an uninhabitable or uninhabited planet, or planet-esque entity. Moon isn't much about looks or effects, though it has them. It's about situation and acting, and it has them, quite memorably. Compare these two films and you'll find many of the same ideas better and more clearly handled in Moon without the breezy and pretty but perhaps largely distracting zooming around in space vehicles that Kosinski seems so intent on providing. Well, of course Top Gun is one of Tom Cruise's greatest triumphs: this is, after all, a kind of sci-fi Top Gun. But Kosinski isn't intent on space machismo. He has higher aims.

Oblivion is from a graphic novel, not a fact that usually thrills me, but this one is by the director himself, which offers the promise that he's working from his own material. Alas, that benefit diminishes when we learn it's an unpublished graphic novel, and then auteurism all but vanishes when we are further apprised that, as it turns out, the screenplay is a group effort by Joseph Kosinski, William Monahan, Karl Gajdusek, amd Michael Arndt. Who's Kosinski? Well, his previous, debut, film was Tron: Legacy. Uh-oh; that one was dead in the water, much though I root for Garrett Hedlund, and good though Jeff Bridges can be. This film is certainly more splendid than Tron: Legacy, but it has the same failings, even if they're not quite as glaring.

Now, what of the supposed problem of Tom Cruise? Call me crazy, tell me about all the "noise" of rumors and scandals about him, for me he still has a good deal of glamour and pizzazz. And that's handy, because most of the time as "Jack Harper" (whom I overall preferred to his recent "Jack Reacher") has to act in a vacuum, or in a drone bubble flying in nonexistent CGI spaces, or walking across a desolate "After Earth" landscape talking to his partner or his boss on a remote pickup. I refer you to Manohla Dargis's diss of Cruise, which taints her Oblivion review. She has just dissed After Earth, even more intensely, perhaps with more justification, but she seems prone to pre-judging films a bit too much lately on the basis of their stars' reputations. I do not think the presence of Tom Cruise in Oblivion is a problem. Get over it. Of course I'd rather this were called Moon and the star were Sam Rockwell, but that's just because Moon is a better movie. Oblivion has enough problems without picking on the cast.

As his partner Victoria (usually simplified to the modernistic sounding "Vika") is the most interesting cast member, Andrea Riseborough. Risenborough, who is English, has worked a lot in TV, including my favorite grumpy doctor series, "Doc Martin." Then she seems to have virtually exploded onto the screen over the past four years, in films ranging from the spooky sci-fi story Never Let Me Go, the lively women's lib period film Made in Dagenham and the atmospheric, also period, Brighten Rock -- all released in 2010 -- to suavely and with great composure impersonating Wallace Simpson (the Duchess of Windsor) in W.E., followed by another period film, this time set in Wales during the War, Resistance, those two both released in 2011. In 2012 she was in Shadow Dancer and Disconnect; in the latter playing a neurotic American lady, and that was the first time I noticed her. She was good. Shadow Dancer has just come out in this country, but released in the UK last summer. It's directed by the terrific documentary filmmaker James Marsh, and has gotten great reviews, but I haven't seen it yet; it's about the IRA in the Nineties. Playing the chilly, immaculate, almost clone-like Victoria must have been a walk for her, except for the same difficulty Tom Cruise faced: she must do most of her acting talking to a bank of electrical messages and diagrams. She does this, well, immaculately, and is it a surprise that she has four more movies soon coming out?

This is largely a two-hander at first and to say there is little chemistry between Risenborough and Cruise would be irrelevant: there's not meant to be. It would be unfair not to mention the other actors who later appear, first Olga Kurylenko, who is Ukrainian, is pretty, has a big wide mouth, and is in a lot of movies lately too. She is most known for Malick's To the Wonder, in which she hardly speaks, and that's about the size of it for Olga. It suffices that her Julia has a bit more warmth than Vika, to justify her role. I should also mention Morgan Freeman, except he doesn't have much to do other than talk in his Morgan Freeman voice, wear shades, and smoke a big cigar. Where they get cigars on post-apocalyptic Earth is just one of those many questions better not asked. There is also Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as one Sykes, whose name you may not have caught. No matter: if he does anything other than pose with a sci-fi rifle and show off nicely slicked-down and tied-back hair, I missed it.

To reiterate by citing a release-date review: Andrew O'Hehir is right: "Oblivion is a technical triumph rather than a philosophical breakthrough, demonstrating how beautifully digital effects can be blended with real people and real sets, demonstrating that neither Tom Cruise nor the 1970s will ever die, and announcing the unexpected arrival of a major science-fiction director." Yes the 1970's and also vinyl records, which may come back in another sixty years. I'm not quite sure of the last point, though: it's hard to say Kosinski's "arrived" as a sci-fi director when he made one previously, and neither film quite qualifies as "major." But the images are razor-sharp, as has been often pointed out, and are notable not only for effective digital transfer but the use of some very good lenses. It is not a surprise to learn this movie was shot by Claudio Miranda of the visually glorious Life of Pi. The music, however, a mix of soaring strings and hammering Taiko-type drums, is conventional and intrusive.

The plot is a post-apocalyptic job and a very rote explanation by Cruise's voiceover fills us in at the start. Something went terribly wrong: I got that. There was a war for planet Earth and we "won," except that we destroyed most of the planet in the process. I got that, and it sounds like a pretty likely scenario, all in all, I'm afraid, the way things are going. Earthlings now all live on some moon of another planet, and are just maintaining guard over Earth power stations using drones, which Jack and Vika are on a tour of duty to maintain, Jack doing the field work and Vica the backup communications and liaison with HQ represented by the suspiciously chummy and down-home-sounding Sally (Melissa Leo).

It's best not to go into too much detail about what happens, out of fear of "spoilers," the bugaboo of those who use surprise as a substitute for though-provokingness -- but also because frankly it doesn't finally all make sense. The baddies Vika and Jack are stationed on the space platform to weed out are Scavengers, or "Scavs" for short, which sounds like Scabs, and that might have been more vivid, though sci-fi does love its made-up names and entities. They just appear as pod vehicles like the ones Jack rides. If you want fun baddies, go to the lurid District 9. I don't exactly understand -- I'm sure someone could explain to me -- why a man in his forties has a melancholic longing for a world that vanished six decades ago, which he seems dimly to remember. This is doubtless a potentially evocative theme -- Moon's protagonist too has a homesickness, and the Earth-longings of banished Earthlings is a favorite, and resonant science fiction theme. Kosinski & Co.'s development of it is too complicated and too unresolved in the details. The coincidences and complexities were too much for me. Jack and his girlfriend do live happily ever after. Moon has a darker and more powerful ending, which requires a courage that in Kosinski's case was squandered on technical ambitions. And you don't get this kind of budget with a downbeat ending.

Oblivion, 124 mins., released April 10-12, 2013 (international), April 19 (U.S.) (Universal).

[tabuno]

While I would agree in tone with Chris and his thoughtful and well researched (more than I ever could) movie commentary, I haven't had the extensive experience with the plethora of movies and storylines to compare Oblivion too. I enjoyed his thoughts about Victoria played by, Andrea Riseborough which is one of the reasons I thought this movie really excelled. I also agree that Moon with Sam Rockwell was really compelling. The more I read the content of Chris's commentary the more I wonder about his inward focus on singular acting roles as in Moon versus the rather more oblique focus on relational storylines. It almost seems like Chris is one a singular, self-voyage of exploration whereas I've been drawn more to the relational, transactional storylines which I've tended to rate more generously.

The storyline for me was satisfying and more than the usual traditional monster story. Moon had the solitary and the independent haunting ambivalent ending while Oblivion had the more American satisfying ending. Take my love for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) ending along with the more Close Encounter of the Third Kind (1977) with Oblivion is in sort of a reverse theme along the lines that one might find with Keanu Reeves. My level of content with movies is something that I believe Chris is searching for that hard core sci fi angle that is, I admit, more rare. What I look for is a decent storyline that has layers, has acting that really moves me, along with enhancing visuals and the popcorn without butter and sufficient liquids to wash it down and I'm really happy. Thus is perhaps the negative consequences of seeing so many movies, though I also imagine that when those rare moments occur with much more frequency than for the rest of us, it must really be something.

[Chris Knipp]

OBLIVION seems worthy of my "quality time," especially after how much attention you and our other colleagues have devoted to it in this thread. But as you note I definitely focused more on the actors. This grew out of my defense of Tom Cruise, whose presence has been taken to be a basic defect in the film, which I don't think it is. Some of the characters (Julia, Beech [Morgan Freeman]) are underdeveloped in the screenplay, but there's nothing wrong with the performances per se.

I believe Chris is searching for that hard core sci fi angle that is, I admit, more rare

Well, yes. This is a sci-fi movie, naturally I'm looking for "that hard core sci fi angle." This may be a pretty good sci-fi movie, as sci-fi movies generally go. At least it has good actors and outstanding visuals. "That hard core sci fi angle" is the scenario, which I'm not alone in finding far less satisfying here than the visuals and the special effects.

I have to make a correction since glancing back now at Anthony Lane's New Yorker review. I was calling Cruise "in his forties," but he hit fifty last year. The man looks great, but he's rapidly leaving middle age and going beyond. Lane is so much wittier than I am I can't resist quoting some of his review:

In “Oblivion,” [Cruise] spends his days traversing wastelands on a motorbike (the first choice for Cruise-transportation, as it was even in “Top Gun”), and visiting the remnants of leading attractions: the Empire State Building, a caved-in football stadium, and the shell of the New York Public Library, where the first book he finds is a copy of Macaulay, with its ennobling stanzas about Horatius holding the bridge in ancient Rome. Why couldn’t he pick up “Right Ho, Jeeves” or “Green Eggs and Ham”? Halfway through, Morgan Freeman makes an appearance, although somebody forgot to supply him with a proper script, or, indeed, a character. The same goes for Olga Kurylenko, as a beauty named Julia, who lands in a climate-controlled sarcophagus, bringing with her a secret epiphany and a choice of strappy tops. Jack is obsessed with Julia, you feel, without being particularly interested in her, and he only really perks up when obliged, thanks to a cloning subplot, to punch himself. “You should see the other guy,” he says. It’s the one good line in the film.
--Anthony Lane.

I didn't mention the cloning subplot -- I used up so much space talking about the visuals and the actors I didn't have any left for such details -- but I thought it was something that strongly suggested a debt to, or certainly a link with, Duncan Jones's MOON. Lane concludes there are two reasons for seeing this movie: the cinematography of Claudio Miranda, and the remarkable Andrea Riseborough. On that I agree. Lane also notes that both Morgan Freeman and Olga Kurylenko aren't really supplied with characters, though Olga comes in her box supplied with "a secret epiphany and a choice of strappy tops."

But writing counts! Of course a little film can be improvised, but that's not the point. A sketchy plot line and patchy dialogue are not what you need in a jaw-droppingly handsome looking sci-fi epic with a plot setup as ambitious as this one. You need a well-worked-out story line and a good script. You need "that hard core sci fi angle" too.

[tabuno]

Personally for me, besides the hard core sci fi movie contents, I believe I'm also impacted as much by the relational intensity and involvement that a movie incorporates as well as the layered and deeply reflective introverted insight into the human psychic. Interestingly, a sci fi movie can have its backdrop as a theme, much like Chris has described special effects, visual effects and even the performances, and yet even deeper and more important for me personally is how the movie depicts the transactional nature of human beings on a deeply moving level and the portrayal of existential, metaphysical meanings of life, death, and purpose. Thus the following sci fi movies still resonate a powerful impact regardless of their perhaps lack of hard core, original sci fi elements:

Deja Vu (2006). The love from afar that is then experienced close up but without real physical intimacy and later the sci fi twist of death and rebirth.

A Boy and His Dog (1975). The surprising twist at the end regarding the choice between the girl and something else. A rather haunting, lonely living in isolation movie.

Green Lantern (2011). A rare superhero movie that depicts a rather human superhero character unlike most other stylized, over the top dramatized personas that the average person can't relate to, only fantasy, similar to

Oblivion (2013). An edgy relational movie about what's real and what not real that actually depicts or reflects may real relationships even in today;s world, much more penetrating than that stereotypical Total Recall (1990). I felt the confusing sadness of loss in this movie.

A Wrinkle In Time (2002). Strong moving family tie elements in this movie.

WALL*E (2008). Much like Moon (2009) but with that added relational and then even a ecological component as depicted in Silent Running (1972).

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Even though I really enjoyed this movie for its hard-core depiction of mysterious alien ambiance and visuals (apparently belittled by realist critics who didn't admire sci fi as a child), this movie did have its relational component which really was the basis for the climax of the movie.

Cloud Atlas (2012). scattered throughout is this eternal relational connectivity that seems quite quantum in its depiction, eye-popping at that.

Solaris (2002). a deeply relational version of the classic Stanilaw Lem's novel.

The Truman Show (1998). that came even before The Matrix about questioning reality and what's real or not.

Brainstorm (1983). one of the earliest movies about virtual reality and the last for Natalie Wood along with the fusion of relational themes and death/spiritual themes that connect together.

Spiderman 2 (2004) and Spiderman 3 (2007). strong everyman stories with sci fi elements along with the persistent development of relational development as well as moralistic inner demons.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). A mind blowing sci fi look at love and relationships.

Twelve Monkeys (1996). a raw look at mental disorders as well as deeply moralistic and personal issues of time travel paradoxes.

Blade Runner (1982). a visually dazzling look at humans and non-humans and their relationships.

Alien (1979). a whole small encapsulated relational human dynamics including especially a "cat."

Inception (2010). tucked away but always present a past love story that is sought in the future-present.

Another Earth (2011). a non-romantic, but nevertheless a haunting depiction of important relational dynamics.

One exception to this relational or existential criteria for sci fi movie excellence might be the serious, authentic depiction of sci fi themes similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) such as:

Fail-Safe (1964). About a thermonuclear accident to be.

The Andromeda Strain (1971) about America's scientific/medical response to an alien contagion.

Epoch (2001). about an encounter with an alien object and America's response, even in light of the Chinese-American dramatics.

Stranger from Venus or "Immediate Disaster" (1954). that combines from a relational and alien from the stars theme and America's reaction to it.

Stranded (2001). one of the more straightforward portrayals of stuck on another planet movies.

Splice (2010). a subtle and serous look at the hypothetical scientific look at creating new life.

Wavelength (1983). an immersive, less special effects driven movie about relating with young children and alien beings.

[oscar jubis]

I like a lot of the movies you list. I will watch Another Earth based on your recommendation. I remember thinking the premise sounded intriguing but I totally forgot about it until now.

[Chris Knipp]

It is a good list, though I don't agree on all (GREEN LANTERN? ANOTHER EARTH? OBLIVION?) and some I havn'et seen and might perhaps enjoy one day.

[oscar jubis]

You didn't like Another Earth? I'm thinking of watching it. Don't remember if you reviewed it

[Chris Knipp]

BRIT MARLING

The star, Brit Marling, is beautiful. Not surprisingly, she has been getting a lot of work since. No, I did not like ANOTHER EARTH. It rubbed me the wrong way. But if only for that very reason I gave it my careful attention and wrote a review.
tabuno's review here. Miine here. I forgot to post it on Filmleaf but put a link to it on tabuno's thread.

The path that is taken by their [Rhoda and John's] relationship, if you can call it that, is scarcely more credible than the prospect of a fresh world that could sit in the heavens, not far away, without screwing up our orbit. Still, the movie exerts its own gravitational pull.
--Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

Perhaps now you will have to watch it and want to like it, as you very well might.

It won the Arthur P. Sloan Prize at Sunance, which has gone to GRIZZLY MAN, PRIMER, SLEEP DEALER, and this year to COMPUTER CHESS, and all of those I like. Reviews of ANOTHER EARTH were quite decent, enough for a Metacritic 66. I do like lo-fi sci-fi, but not always. Sci-fi that is scientifically quite impossible (but focused on today's world) starts with a serious handicap. This is a trickier genre than far-future sci-fi.

[cinemabon]

Getting back to "Oblivion" in relation to the latest "Star Trek" offering... I liked "Oblivion" better in terms of story and payoff, even though "Into Darkness" had the bigger budget. The story was a rehash... which disappointed me.

"Another Earth" on the other hand is less a science fiction movie and more a psychological drama. The sci-fi part of it is never resolved. I did not write a review because I stopped watching it (rental). Also, the science is a big stretch. We who love sci-fi like our science to have a little more credence than this film had. I believe they were fascinated by the performances and the first part of the story (resolving the car accident victim) than they were will a dual world story (which the film doesn't really go into much - although it alludes to that).

I did not see your review, Chris. Did you put a link in for it?

Tab - seven degrees of separation - you did not mention "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) which, like "Immediate Disaster" (1954) starred Patricia Neal; strange you mentioned the later and not the former considered one of the great milestones in science fiction cinema - score by Bernard Herrmann btw

[Chris Knipp]

I did not see your review, Chris. Did you put a link in for it?

Yes, in the post right before yours where it says "tabuno's review here. Mine here."