Futuristic movies, films on utopias or dystopias have always been one of my favorite genres. Perhaps it is one of the few ways I can let myself drift into a different world of thought altogether. Having liked Tom Cruise’s performance in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, I had reasonably high hopes for Oblivion, especially after checking out its trailer on IMDB. I liked the concept behind it, though it is hardly unique – earth, now in ruins, has only a few survivors left, and there is a mystery as to how the dear planet of all faced this destruction.
Such a plot, as was the case with Terminator Salvation, often has a revolutionary theme, even anarchist or anti statist overtones. The cult movies of the 80’s from Hollywood, like Robocop, often were critical of authority and those in positions of power. I was hoping to see elements of anti war sentiments or anarchist ideals, as a form of respite from the mainstream garbage of day to day drudgery.
But alas, it was quite a let down in that sense. Despite having some nice action packed sequences, the movie, if anything, turned out to be more like those silly propagandist movies that celebrate the “American way of life”, which is a cute way of saying bourgeoisie democracy. Or else why would the protagonist(s) Jack Harper dream of only his wife and the American flag flying high atop the embassy from the earth he knew and whose memory has been wiped from his head.
Spoiler alert:
The film starts with Jack Harper, the drone technician and Victoria being an “effective team”, alone, on Earth, with the knowledge that humans have won the battle against aliens but have lost the planet, due to the use of nuclear weapons. Jack knows that they are only a couple of weeks on Earth before they will head to Tet (?), the space station cum command center, from which their activities are coordinated, and then head off to Titan, Saturn’s moon, where all the human survivors are living.
Everyday Jack has to set off in his highly sophisticated plane and scout for ‘aliens’ or ‘scabs’ who he has been told try to destroy the killing machines, drones. But he discovers that he has been duped, as the drones have only one objective- not to execute any aliens, rather carry out search and destroy humans still alive on the planet. Predictably, he comes across a resistance group, led by Morgan Freeman (I don’t know what he was doing in a film and that too in such an insignificant role like this).
What was most disappointing was the way the relationships were shown. The chemistry between Jack and his wife was melodramatic to say the least, and so was the heroic ending to save the earth.
The verdict is in: the film made a mess of what was an interesting concept. Poor acting by Olga Kurylenko did not help either.
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