Virag's Movie Reviews: Oblivion (2013)

Oblivion feels too much like a mashup of Prometheus and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow--a sometimes interesting-looking slideshow of poorly-realized lame ideas and clumsy shoutouts.  First off, Tom Cruise is always a liability to your film--a buffer Paul Giamatti--and Cruise is especially vapid here.  Andrea Riseborough is actually pretty decent, just frumpy and pissy enough to make you think that her story, her memories, her conflicts, her motivations, should have been given more emphasis, because her character is clearly--or clearly should have been--going through a parallel evolution to Cruise's character.  Otherwise, Morgan Freeman and Melissa Leo cashed checks while Jamie Lannister looks bewildered.  Somewhere, in the hands of talented director and half-way decent writer, the Oblivion concept coulda' been good, maybe.  In reality, it wasn't.