![]() The only thread "Oblivion" follows to the end is its "creation myth." Harper is an idealized man he's good with a gun, good with his hands, good in bed, loves football and rides a motorcycle. It's a rah-rah action flick - except its action scenes aren't very good. It's a story about humans struggling for survival in an environment controlled by technology - except it appears to be much more interested in the technology than in the humans. It's a wannabe mindbender that raises questions about its lead character's identity - except that the lead character is too sketchy to make these questions compelling. "Oblivion" is a political allegory about a lowly "technician" sending unmanned drones to hunt and kill a demonized, alien Other - until it forgets that it ever was. Or, more accurately, the stories it tells, because "Oblivion," derivative to a fault, tries to be several science-fiction movies at once. The problem is that the world "Oblivion" introduces - an abandoned, depopulated Earth - is more interesting than the story it tells. It's a smart technique for science-fiction storytelling it eases the viewer into the world of the film. The film's opening stretch is its one strong point - a gradual, immersive build-up of details. It also creates one of the movie's more glaring logical errors, but that's a different story altogether. It goes without saying that the flight recorder unearths all kinds of secrets about Harper, Vica, and the alien invasion. The astronaut has been in cryogenic sleep for the past six decades but refuses to disclose the nature of her mission to Harper and Vica until they recover her flight recorder. ![]() This incites jealousy and suspicion from Vica, who is both Harper's partner and his lover. He manages to rescue one survivor, a Russian astronaut ( Olga Kurylenko) who looks exactly like the woman in his dreams. One day, Harper spots an antique spacecraft crashing into the countryside. In order to maintain the integrity of the mission, Harper and Vica's memories have been wiped nonetheless, Harper is haunted by extremely cheesy black-and-white dreams of a beautiful woman meeting him in pre-invasion New York. Their boss, the creepily cheerful Sally ( Melissa Leo), supervises them from an orbiting control center. Harper and Vica spend their days fixing drones, eating candelit dinners, and swimming in a glass-bottomed pool. Like Olivia Wilde's Quorra in " Tron: Legacy," she often resembles a marionette. Harper lives in a penthouse-like tower with his communications officer, Vica ( Andrea Riseborough). Harper and colleagues remain as technicians, servicing robot drones that defend resource-gathering stations from alien stragglers. The other survivors have long since relocated to Titan. Cruise stars as Jack Harper, one of a handful of people left on the planet. "Oblivion" is set in the year 2077, 60 years after an alien invasion rendered the Earth largely uninhabitable. It features shiny surfaces, clicky machinery and no recognizable human behavior. It starts slow, turns dull and then becomes tedious - which makes it a marginal improvement over the earlier film. The mixed reactions of cinemagoers are also reflected in the critical reception, with Empire's Mark Salisbury praising the film, calling it "giddily madcap, surreal, sardonic satire," while Peter Stack for the San Francisco Chronicle said it "blows most of its inspired moments with its mean-spirited mentality." As for us, we definitely agree with Salisbury - "Mars Attacks!' just might be Tim Burton's most underrated movie.Like director Joseph Kosinski's debut, " Tron: Legacy" (2010), "Oblivion" is a special effects extravaganza with a lot of blatant symbolism and very little meaning. ![]() ![]() While the unique and zany nature of the film didn't necessarily connect with American audiences, it performed much better in Europe, cementing its status as a future cult classic. Whether it is the aliens' hilarious way of speaking or the femme fatale "Martian Girl" (Lisa Marie) with her iconic bouffant blonde wig, "Mars Attacks!" is packed with moments that make it unlike any other alien invasion film you'll see. Based on the trading card series of the same name, "Mars Attacks!" sees hordes of little green men arrive on planet Earth, while the world's assembled powers wait to see if their intentions are peaceful. ![]()
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