I saw
Oblivion recently as well. I remember seeing your thoughts on it over in the movie(s) thread and I had some responses but didn't really feel like hashing out a several-page reply.
For the most part I thought it was good as far as a semi-smart scifi movie (by today's standards), which was nice. It was one of those films that was just frustrating to watch because it comes so close to hitting some truly great points, but ends up falling just short.
The end left some very cool implications, but the hackneyed manner they approached the last 30 minutes made it feel jumbled and unsophisticated.
I thought the main character was really freaking boring. And not just because Tom Cruise was playing him. Tom Cruise was Tom Cruise in this film. He was just there, he didn't particularly harm or help the film by his performance. This is one of those films, much like I Am Legend, which really could have benefited from a quality performance. I thought it would have been really cool if they had played up the protagonist's nostalgia. They hint at it a lot. The Superbowl scene, his constant wearing of a Yankees cap, etc. The film could have worked well with a Smith-type role in I Am Legend where the years of isolation (only 1 person to talk to other than himself) could have made him a bit unwound. This would have been a very neat twist.
Neither of the female characters are particularly interesting. While you can blame them a little bit, much of that comes down to poor writing. They aren't given much of any kind of role to play. Again missed opportunities because this film would have been great if it explored the nature of the relationship between Cruise and his "partner", especially if it examined how that relationship got stressed with the introduction of the 2nd female character. Instead she's just kind of neatly disposed of in about 2 seconds.
Morgan Freeman et al are just kind of there. Freeman gave the role his Freemaniest but there's just nothing there. The whole freedom-fighter movement just felt so tossed in in the last days of writing because the screenwriters went "oh [feces] I guess we have to end this movie, huh?". So yeah. You just end up not caring about them, much like the 2nd female. She's more a MacGuffin to turn Cruise into a rebel so she doesn't really have much of a character to speak of. Again missed opportunities.
The twist seems like it's there just for the sake of a twist. Again; interesting implications and I feel they could have done a lot in terms of internal struggles/interacting with. Instead it's basically just a way for everybody to go "OH" and then move along swiftly to a Resolution. The twist really could have just been that the leader of the aliens was actually Norman Bates dressed as his mother riding a sled while carrying the charred remains of the Statue of Liberty on his back and it would have functionally served the same purpose from a narrative/theme standpoint.
So yeah I think the problem with this film isn't that it's a bad movie, more that it's a disappointing movie. The cinematography, effects, editing sets, and dialogue was mostly good. The movie was solidly shot, and reasonably well directed. I'd say the lighting was probably one of the few real bad decisions from the production standpoint. The actors were neither here nor there. They didn't lift the role, but they didn't harm it either. The main problem with this film is that it sets itself up as an interesting cerebral SciFi film but then doesn't follow through, preferring to play it safe with Big Dumb Action sequences. So yeah. Disappointing.
And I'm sorry I'm not more specific in what I'd have rather they done from a thematic standpoint. I really don't feel like clicking the spoiler button. Deal with it.
