From Universal Pictures comes
Oblivion. The Tom Cruise/Morgan Freeman sci-fi epic arrives on blu-ray on August 6. Is it worth your hard earned cash?
From the box:
This groundbreaking cinematic event stars Tom Cruise as Jack Harper, the lone security repairman stationed on a desolate, nearly0ruined future Earth. When he rescues a beautiful stranger from a downed spacecraft, her arrival triggers a nonstop chain of events that forces him to question everything he knows, and leaves humanity's fate in his hands. Academy Award-winner Morgan Freeman joins Cruise in this "visually stunning" (Pete Hammond, MOVIELINE), explosive story from the director of TRON: Legacy and the producer of Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Let's get a couple things out of the way pretty quick.
Oblivion isn't exactly epic in scale and Morgan Freeman is in it for about fifteen minutes, if that. That said,
Oblivion is a pretty fun flick with some unexpected twists and turns along the way.
The story revolves around Cruise's Jack Harper who spends his days flitting about the area fixing damaged security robots. He spends his nights living with his partner who maintains communications with their mysterious employers. As he is out and about he comes across a downed space ship and collects the only survivor. From there, everything begins to change and Jack Harper realizes that nothing in his life is what it appears to be.
That's about all I can tell you without spoiling the twists that this movie delivers and it's these twists that elevate Oblivion from the standard sci-fi fare. The action is strong the direction solid. It is gorgeously filmed and very well acted by the minimal cast. If you aren't a Tom Cruise fan then you're gonna want to look elsewhere as he is in pretty much every single scene in this movie. He carries the entire film pretty much as the basis of the story revolves entirely around him and he carries it very well. Tom Cruise is able to bring the strength and emotional range to make what eventually occurs believable. This is yet another strong performance for Cruise, who even at this late stage in his career continues to deliver top of his game performances. The same goes for the rest of the cast. everyone was really great. Morgan Freeman of course was great but he's only in it for a very short time.
As for the blu-ray, the picture is gorgeous. The landscapes of the abandoned earth look stunning and the effects are top notch. The special features include featurette on the stunts, the Bubble Ship, the visual effects, and the music, deleted scenes, commentary, and interestingly enough an isolated score track where you can watch the entire film accompanied by the score done by M83.
Overall,
Oblivion is a pretty great action packed sci-fi film. Is it epic? I don't know about that. I feel like the scale is a little restrained to really be considered an epic but it's still worth your time and will make a worthy addition to your shelf! Or your hard drive I guess if you are into that.
Oblivion arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on August 6!
8 out of 10 Bubble Ships!
RAWR(for more)
on DVD? Well courtesy of Universal Pictures and Pop Culture Beast, you can!
