Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/130240
Bloated Patriarchal Retread Oblivion (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS We should not have expected anything great from writer/director Joseph Kosinski, the mind that bought us the execrable Tron: Legacy. Oblivion (124 minutes) is the worst kind of science-fiction film because clever trailers make it seem good at first glance. But it's just so much smoke and mirrors, people! Don't be fooled! This clumsy amalgamation of other, better films just doesn't live up to its potential. I mean, how do you live with yourself after you get Zoe Bell to appear in your crappy movie and then fail to give her any lines? She should have been the star! Honestly, it is nearly impossible to take Tom Cruise seriously as an actor or a human being given his ideological excesses. Every single movie he has been in for the last 10 years might as well have been titled Tom Cruise Doing Stuff And There's Also a Pretty Girl. I know a lot of people liked this movie and it's making lots of money. But that doesn't mean it's any good. The film takes place in 2077, 60 years after a war with aliens, which is a bit of a leap right off the bat. Setting movies in the relatively near future only works if you really understand the progress of technology and future aesthetics. On the one hand there are the ruins of Earth, supposedly devastated by hundreds of nuclear blasts and worldwide natural disasters. On the other hand, is the extremely sophisticated and sterile security and drone maintenance team. I wish the filmmakers had dedicated one second to explaining the technology timeline of the film. We are expected to believe that four years from now humanity has developed new and vastly more sophisticated technology AND managed to retain and improve upon the technology after surviving a war with alien beings that resulted in most of humanity being killed. Go ahead and claim this was part of the plot, I think it was just bad writing. After mulling over that for a bit, note that the filmmakers would have us believe that despite running around in the filthy irradiated ruins, Tech #49, Jack Harper (Cruise), never dirties either his futuristic jet/helicopter OR the immaculate dwelling in the clouds that serves as his home base. Perhaps it is because his helpful life partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) spends her days wearing immaculate grey dresses while cleaning and cooking (in high heels, no less)? Seriously, could we get any more sexist? Harper gets to go out and have exciting adventures while the female half of the team waits at home, ready to fulfill his every desire. So, while Harper is out and about he does perimeter checks and fixes drones that serve as the primary security for the hydro-electric thingies that are draining Earth's oceans. After establishing that he is dreaming of a past with a woman he could not possibly have known, the woman mysteriously appears at a crash site. Julia (Olga Kurylenko) manages to get her hands on a gun at one point, but she doesn't get to use it long because there are plenty of big strong men around to shoot the bad guys for her. At least Morgan Freeman appears to lend his credibility to the vacuous mess that is the rest of the film while also serving as the sole representative of non-white humanity. Would you care to take bets on whether or not he survives the film? Oh! You know who else shows up? Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones! Only here, he plays some kind of second-in-command named Sykes (Nikolaj Coster-Waldeau). I like him! Too bad he picked a stupid movie to appear in! Overall, skip it. Instead, Netflix one or more of the following Moon, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner or Aeon Flux. Then, imagine how much better this trash would have been if Charlize Theron or Sam Rockwell starred instead of Cruise. Now showing at Wynnsong 7, Carmike 12 and Carmike Market Fair 15. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. 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