In a World... On the Brink... of Disaster...

As we noted recently (in our review of Kate), Hollywood has a tendency to create similar films at the same time. Whether intention or not, you can find a fascinating history of multiple studios essentially creating the same film over and over again, whether inspired by the same concept or literally riffing on the same plot line. When these moments happen, right or wrong, the films are inevitably compared against each other and that makes up the whole of the discussion (just look at how much we talked about how Kate riffed on Gunpowder Milkshake).

In 2013 we had an instance of this happen: two films starring A-list actors about then living in a post-apocalyptic Earth of the future. One was the Will-Smith starring After Earth (which I have yet to watch but heard was awful). The other was the Tom Cruise-starring Oblivion. Beyond the basics of these two films (which I outlined), they weren't at all related in story or content, they both just happened to come out around the same time (May, 2013 for After Earth and April, 2013 for Oblivion) and both films were painted with the same brush.

I think having After Earth getting advertised around the same time that Oblivion came along certainly hurt the film, especially as the Will Smith production was billed as an "M. Night Shyamalan film" right at the point where that director's cred was falling off. Whatever the case, neither film did boffo Box Office (both films did respectably, but not enough to call them true "hits"), and they've both faded into obscurity since. I actually don't hate Oblivion, but it's interesting to see what the film does right and, in many ways, how it squanders its leading man in a film that doesn't, in any way, play to his strengths.

Like him or hate him (and there's a lot of hate built up over the years), Tom Cruise does have a particular kind of film that he makes really well: action films where he pulls of stupidly daring stunts all on his own, hurtling him closer and closer to his inevitable death. Movies like, well, everything in the Mission: ImpossibleIntroduced in 1966, the original Mission: Impossible featured a team of agents (with varying skills) heading out into the field to solve puzzle-box like cases on a weekly basis. This simple concept spawned a long-running series, a second series in the 1980s, and a hugely successful movie franchise starring Tom Cruise that continues today. canon have let Cruise indulge his death-defying needs (and the next two Mission Impossible films will apparently ratchet that up even further). It works for the actor and it makes his grounded, reality-based action films feel visceral because you know the actor is really doing what you're seeing on screen.

Where the actor's shtick doesn't work is in a film where barely anything requires real, honest to goodness stunts. Oblivion is a sci-fi action film that takes place in ship, on sound stages, and in front of green screens, all of it coated with a thick layer of CGI. With the right actor in the lead that could have worked out pretty well but this is not a setting that plays to any of Cruise's strengths -- when you expect to see the actor try to kill himself for our enjoyment, slathering that in a thick layer of green screen and CGI ruins all the joys. And without that, what do we have? Cruise's acting talents? Not at this phase of his life.

Cruise is a fine actor, mind you, but that's a term that very accurately portrays his range: "fine". There was a time, early on in his career, where he was a charismatic actor that could pull off big, emotional swings. He's much more reserved now and that's big, colorful character moments feel out of place in his performances in the more recent era of his career. Instead he's mastered a certain kind of stoic with just a tinge of emoting. You can be stoic when you job is the hurl yourself through daring action, centering and grounding the film with the knowledge that you're cool and collected and can deal with anything. Against a sci-fi backdrop of unreality, though, you need a more expressive and charismatic lead. Cruise just didn't fit the bill.

In fact, I'd argue there's a fair bit of miscasting in many of the major roles. Morgan Freeman shows up as the leader of the human resistance (we'll get to the story in a second), and he doesn't really act so much as give the usual Morgan Freeman "would you look at the shit they're making me say" paycheck performance. Meanwhile Nokolaj "I'm Jamie Lanister" Coster-Waldau is here in a thankless role that barely lets him do anything at all when that actor has charisma pouring out of his pores. There's a version of this story where the Coster-Waldau had the Tom Cruise role and the film would have worked much better for it.

At its core the film does actually have some interesting ideas. In the movie we're introduced to Cruise's Jack Harper, a tech working on a sky tower, maintaining defensive probes that protect the world against the "Scavs". The Scavs are the remnants of an alien race that attacked the Earth, blowing up the moon and plunging the world into an apocalypse. Most of humanity, we're told, escaped to bases out on Titan, while a select few engineers and operators, like Harper and his operator Vika (Andrea Riseborough), protect the world until it's safe for the rest of humanity to return.

Only trick, as we learn, is that the Scavs aren't actually aliens; they're the real remnants of humanity. The people Jack and Vika have been working for, who they think are people out on Titan, is the actual alien force. Once the secrets start coming the film twists and turns, adding on new complications again and again until Jack finally learns the truth about himself (and Vika), about the aliens, and realizes what he has to do. It's a deep rabbit hole that keeps getting more and more complicated until we reach the (literally) explosive conclusion.

I do like the ideas behind the movie and I think, in the right hands and with the right actor at the lead, this film could have worked. Certainly I think Riseborough does a fantastic job as Vika and, when she's introduced, Olga Kurlenko's Julia Harper (Jack's wife that he can't remember) provides another solid female lead in the film. If they had an actor that could work in this kind of setting this movie could have really flown. There are bursts of action that are great in the film, and the production design is stellar -- it absolutely nails the sci-fi beats -- it just needed someone different grounding everything.

Well, that and it needed to treat Vika better in the last act. The film adds a lot of twists -- really twists on twists on twists almost like this was the M. Night film -- but these twists get so focused on Jack that Vika gets all but forgotten. The movie starts to treat her like a woman scorned (because Jack's wife shows up, even if he can't remember her), and suddenly any character growth for Vika is thrown out the window. Jack gets a huge, heroic arc and even though we're shown that Vika was at his side in the beginning, being another "big damn hero", she's cast aside while Jack (sort of) gets his happy ending. It's weird and a tad callous.

I do also think the pacing probably could have been tweaked a little bit. Because there are so many twists the film ends up shoving a lot of plot into the last act. The earlier acts have a steady, easy pace that lets you get absorbed into the film, but once the movie has to shift into explaining everything it really begins to rush all its story (and character beats). That's how we lose wight of Vika, how we get a wife that Jack is supposed to bond with but we barely get any development for it, and how Jack ends up leading the resistance with little in the way of reason why (without the film telling us why). It's a lot and it needed a bit of massaging in the scripting phase to make this work.

I don't think Oblivion is a failure -- as I said, I rather like the film for what it is. It has some good sci-fi action, a pretty elaborately built world, and a few characters I do actually like. The central performance from Cruise is a bit of a let down, though, and it does put a bit of a drag on the film. That, along with pacing issues in the last act, keep this from being an absolute winner. In the right hands I think this movie could have blown After Earth out of the sky. Instead both films ended up feeling like also-rans to the other, diluting the brands for both movies such that neither stood out and have both been forgotten by the viewing public nearly a decade later.