Oblivion: movie review

2015. 13+ on Amazon, PG on IMDb

Fans of Top Gun: Maverick will love this movie. 

It’s basically that  . . . in the future . . . complete with Tom Cruise as lead, Joseph Kosinski as director (who also did Tron: Legacy), Top Gun-esque music, fast-paced flights pulling G’s, and riding a motorcycle through barren Earth landscapes. 

A central theme is “nothing is as it seems,” which I find particularly satisfying, perhaps due to the postmodernist generation’s preoccupation with finding out ‘the real truth’ and the ‘real enemy’. (Cue the biblical book of Revelation.) To that end, the movie contains multiple satisfying twists to the end and the identification of the ‘real enemy.’

Lots of gun violence is softened by having victims dissipate into ash, but the well-crafted tension alongside the violence makes me appreciate Amazon’s 13+ rating rather than IMDb’s PG. I would absolutely not show this movie to a young audience, even with ‘parental guidance’.

Besides violence, there’s backside nudity as Victoria attempts to maintain Jack Harper’s attention, a bribe to keep them an “effective team.” The scene functions as cheap audience bribery too, and is thus unnecessary, especially for IMDb’s recommended PG audiences who might also be confused by the scene’s meaning to the story. The point is made effectively in other ways: Victoria’s general fear of endangering the mission to ensure she gets to “go home,” contrasts Jack’s curiosity (a theme repeated in The Maze Runner movie released the following year). Jack has a nagging sense that Earth is home even as Sally assumes their home is a human colony elsewhere. 

The theme of “home” is so well woven into the plot and characters that I didn’t consciously process it until the movie’s last line. Top-notch emotional payoff.

Review written by: Jazmine Lawrence, Captain (Retired, RCAF), BSc Honours Physics, MA (Theology) student, future sci-fi author