by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright April 2013
My usual feeling is the story makes or breaks the movie. In this case the story is deeply broken, but the sets, setting, acting, and action are neat enough that I enjoyed Oblivion. This sets it apart from contemporaries Prometheus and The Hobbit.
The nicest part about Oblivion is the lifestyle. Jack and Victoria (Cruise and Riseborough) are living an elegant and simplistic style I can relate to because it doesn't look like conspicuous consumption the way something like Great Gatsby or reality shows about rich people do. Both the tower home and the cabin in the woods look comfortable and desirable, and how Jack, Victoria and Julia move around through them is comfortable.
The next nicest part is how good looking Victoria and Julia are in their modest fashions -- once again, unusual and comfortable to watch. This is augmented by some nice camera work which shows them off well. The converse here is Oz the Great and Powerful where you have beautful women in such over-the-top costuming that I found them uncomfortable to watch.
Third nicest is that the gadgets are fun to watch. They are inconsistent with the story, but they are fun to watch. The camera work treats them well.
Those are the good parts... and they are good. That said, here are the Technofiction inconsistencies that bugged me as I watched.
o Pump water off of Earth? Man! There is so much water in other places in the solar system, such as comets, why pump something as commonplace as water out of Earth's deep gravity well? Minerals and mass for use in space come much more easily from comets and asteroids than planet surfaces. Titan, for instance, the supposed destination for Earth's surviving people, has tons of hydrogen in the atmosphere and the methane and ethane lakes, and the gravity well is one tenth as deep as Earth's. Plus, these aliens shattered the Moon! How much power does that take? Needing water from Earth is green-pandering. Thought: If you want to take something off Earth for trade or use in other places in space, it needs to be something special, not something ordinary. In this setting, taking off living plants, animals or humans would make a lot more sense.
o The communication systems are so primitive! Sally, the overseer on the satellite in space, was constantly breaking up as she talked with Victoria. And the communication is mostly voice/video, not data. Jack is constantly popping in and out of contact with Victoria. There is no reason to tolerate this primitive level of contact. What we are seeing here is WWII-level audio communication, plus some video on top. (Depicting good communication is a tough issue in any movie, so this just an average failing.)
o There is so little redundancy in the systems. Why is this taking place on such a shoestring budget? (Once again, pretty average in movies.)
o The conversations all sound so formal and military. These are three people who have been working between themselves... just themselves... for years. The conversation style should have become abbreviated and deeply slangy. A further thought: This formal speaking could have been used as a clue: Sally, the overseer, picks up very little slang while Jack and Victoria use it thickly. They see her as a stick-in-the-mud and giggle about it.
o Jack routinely carries a rifle and a pistol, but he doesn't pull out the pistol for short-range threats such as those when he's in a room.
o The methods of travel, such as the motorcycle, were neat to look at but made no practical sense.
o Why was Jack's little open-to-the-sky, tree-surrounded-pond not discovered by surveillance years ago? And... If Jack is just one in a long line of clones was this bit of Earthly paradise developed just by the current clone, or the work of many? (the many clones are revealed late in the movie, which makes it similar to the Moon story, one I enjoyed and reviewed)
o In his introduction scene Beech, the head scav, lights up a fine-looking cigar with a wooden self-striking match. How did he come across that precious pair? And how come he decides to use it in front of Jack? And in that same scene dozens and dozens of scavs are watching the interrogation. They have nothing better to do?
In sum, the style of the movie is great, and I enjoyed that. But the story is filled with the usual quantity of inconsistencies that plague average science fiction movies. Given how great the style is, that's sad.
-- The End --