OBLIVION is a visual sci-fi marvel with a sweeping score and some of the best post-apocalyptic landscapes ever seen in a sci-fi movie.  It ends up being a solid sci-fi movie that the script allows to have the story breath and develop before everything kicks into high gear.

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is a drone tech on Earth in 2077 (sixty years after the moon was destroyed by an alien invasion).  Humanity won the war, but humanity had to evacuate to the moon Titan around Saturn due to all the radiation of using nukes and the moon’s destruction causing tidal waves and earthquakes to cause havoc on the cities of Earth.  Jack and his partner Victoria are part of the mop up crew with two weeks of their tour left before they go up to the space station and catch a ride to Titan.  Jack repairs drones and wanders the landscape of Earth with the threat of the scavengers (the leftover alien threat) in the background.   He is curious and doesn’t want to leave Earth, and his life is changed when an Earth spaceship crashes and he rescues a survivor named Julia (Olga Kurylenko) that looks like the woman he sees in his dreams.   Soon jack and Julia are sent on a course to discover the truth behind the war and Earth’s fate when they meet a mysterious human named Malcolm Beech and his band of human survivors.

OBLIVION is a better film than Joseph Kosinski’s directorial debut, TRON LEGACY.  It improves on the visual direction he displayed in the TRON sequel.  OBLIVION is ruled by sound and visuals, but Tom Cruise gives a good performance as the weary Jack in a story that holds together enough to deliver a satisfying experience.   The landscapes of Iceland lend to the visual landscapes seen in the movie and some may even recognize some of the same landscapes from PROMETHEUS.  Plus I really dig the music score created by M83 like I loved the music that Daft Punk did for TRON: LEGACY.  The score adds more to the visual landscape and the journey of Jack Harper in OBLIVION. Go see OBLIVION in the theaters for the visual masterpiece it is and stick around for the solid storytelling that wraps up with a climax that comes off just right without being too big or overextended.  Kosinski is a director to watch and I can’t wait to see what visual landscapes he creates for his next film as a director.

This movie review is (c)4-19-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be repeated without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com