The Gates of Oblivion

You know it's still early in 2013 when I'm having a hard time even recommending that you see one of the more action-oriented science fiction stories outside the Summer movie season. After being floored by the big screen visual wonders of director Joseph Kosinski's feature debut Tron: Legacy, getting to see his followup in the form of a post-apocalyptic tale like Oblivion ought to have been a guaranteed treat. After all, this wasn't just a random story, but one Kosinski had been attempting to make for years in homage to sci-fi movies from the seventies (even co-writing the screenplay with The Departed's William Monahan, Toy Story 3's Michael Arndt and Karl Gajdusek). Combining his love of the genre with his innate mastery of all things visual, the oddly-named Oblivion should have been the kind of mysterious, fun thrill ride that forced you to see it on the big screen. So why am I having such a hard time recommending it?

Yankee fandom will never die, it seems.

It's certainly not the concept that falters. Sixty years after aliens known as Scavs destroyed our Moon and most of the planet, the surviving remnants of humanity are now off-world, transported to the orbital space station known as the "Tet" in preparation of being transported to a new colony on Titan. Left on the planet are technician Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and his communications officer Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), tasked with maintaining the security drones that protect operations that mine Earth's natural resources for use on our new home. While Victoria can't wait to leave, Jack is the curious type, always searching for new discoveries and dreading the coming time when he will have to leave what he considers his home. But a crashed shuttle pod with a human survivor raises all kinds of questions about their mission, especially when that survivor (Olga Kurylenko) seems to have some mysterious connection to Jack's missing past.

The Scientologists are invading!

The acting and special effects are both as strong as the concept they are wrapped around. Cruise of course no longer needs to stretch his abilities for his movies to be successful (so far), but here he actually displays more than his trademark charm, parsing a bit of genuine emotion for good measure as well. Of course, he's well within his action wheelhouse, and it's difficult to imagine the now-51 year-old slowing down anytime soon, and certainly not if he can keep putting forth good performances like the one he showcases here. His female leads struggle a little, not via lack of talent but more through lack of romantic chemistry with Cruise. Even if you can get past their age differences (both Kurylenko and Riseborough are almost twenty years Cruise's younger), their inability to connect on-screen with their lead actor only hampers their performances and the story. They still put together good efforts, albeit flawed ones. The cast is rounded out by solid and expected showings from Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo and Nikolaj Coster-Waldeau (who is having a very good 2013, himself), populating the mostly-lifeless Earth with enough personality to keep the audience invested.

And wait... it that Zoe Bell?

As for the effects and action, they're everything we've come to expect from Kosinski, whose Tron sequel was visually amazing despite the story's irregularities. Earth is a cratered wasteland, but the director adds depth to the surroundings via famous destroyed landmarks, gorgeous vistas and little slices of natural heaven. Unlike many end-of-the-world movies, he doesn't just coat everything in grey in post-production to add mood. You get the feeling that he's got an emotional attachment to his imagery, and that he really puts his whole heart into what you watching. It's also the biggest and best argument for seeing Oblivion on the big screen, if not necessarily in 3D or IMAX; these exquisite visuals simply may not translate when introduced to your too-small television screen, or underpowered DVD players (sorry, but at this point it's officially past time you upgraded to Blu-ray).

That's a lot of resource-harvesting action.

And you'll need those visuals to get past Oblivion's biggest flaw; the story is just not there. It's not that it's a bad tale, or even all that poorly-told. You'll genuinely be engaged by plot twists, progressive storytelling and a competent if overly-direct vision; Kosinski doesn't quite trust his audience yet, and so he plugs everything important into the center of the shot so that you can by no means miss so obvious or clever a moment. A bit of subtlety couldn't have hurt, but patience is often the game of veteran directors (and even they don't always get it right), and so his youthful inexperience isn't the detraction it perhaps could have been. Instead, Oblivion's biggest issue is that it brings absolutely nothing to the table. It might have started off as homage, but unlike JJ Abrams' Super 8 - which successfully paid respect to early Steven Spielberg without outright copying him - Kosinski cannot help but crib from his superiors, borrowing plot, themes and sequences from classics such as Wall-E, Moon, District 9, the Matrix Trilogy, 2001 and Independence Day, and that's just scraping the surface.

Soooo, you couldn't see this coming?

You won't find a better example of Hollywood hubris than that of a seemingly original tale that brings absolutely nothing new of note to show. How many sequels a year are we getting from the movie industry? How many remakes? At least we know what we're getting into when we buy a ticket to those. Oblivion is gorgeously designed, well-acted, and certainly cannot be called a waste of time should you decide to venture out and see it right now, not even by me. But there's just no REASON for it, sitting through over two hours of material you could cobble together from a home movie collection. It's a fine time suck if you really have nothing better to watch, but with Iron Man 3 just over the horizon and the true pantheon of summer action movies not far behind, soon you'll be able to do much better than this second-rate sci-fi flick, which won't likely be remembered come the year's end.

Twenty-Eight Years: Worth the Wait

When Tron was released in theaters waaaay back in 1982, it was right on the forefront of what was then a technical revolution. Though you may not think so to look on it now, the film was far more advanced in the special effects department than anything that had come before, and paved the way for generations of big budget special effects blockbusters. Because of Tron's financial success at its release, I'm hesitant to call it a cult classic, but it's obviously difficult to deny the effect this film had on both people and filmmakers, whether or not you could agree on the film's quality.

It's Tron! Oh, wait, it's just Alan

And so all these years later, we finally have a Tron sequel. Tron: Legacy takes place in the modern world, one in which your standard .jpg file is larger than that of the 1982 Grid, the digital universe Kevin Flynn had gotten trapped in so many years ago. In 1989, Flynn (Jeff Bridges reprising his role) disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving behind his tech company, ENCOM, and his young son Sam. Fast-forward to the present day, and Sam (Garrett Hedlund) is still the largest shareholder of ENCOM, but doesn't have much interaction with the company. When his father's friend Alan (Bruce Boxleitner, also reprising his earlier role) arrives with a clue that might lead Sam to find his long-lost father, it sets him on a journey to the very place dear old dad told him stories about in his youth: the Grid.

Looks like somebody's got a battle disc with Sam's name on it

Frankly, any trailer you've seen or commercial you've witnessed advertising this film doesn't do justice to the special effects present here. Granted, I saw Tron: Legacy in a digital 3D Imax theater, and I couldn't really recommend you see this film for the first time in any other capacity, but since the effects are the meat and potatoes of the film-going experience in movies like this, it's a relief to not be let down in this capacity. Like those of Avatar or Resident Evil: Afterlight, the effects do an amazing job of drawing the viewer into the film's atmosphere. Almost everything is impeccably rendered, from the light cycle battles to the flight path of hurled identity discs to the lights of the Grid's great city. The 3D aspects of the film are not necessarily needed, but do add a bit of depth to the effects that are obviously already light-years ahead of the film's predecessor.

Hey, digital boots off the couch!

Like the original film, the sequel has a bevy of acting talent that make their mark on the digital plane. At this point it's obvious Jeff Bridges can do any damned movie he wants, even (and perhaps especially) a Tron sequel. Playing two roles, as the Grid's creator Kevin Flynn and antagonist Clu, Bridges has the opportunity to literally be all over the place, and being not one but two driving forces behind the story is no small task. Bridges does a great job in both roles, matching the patience and paternal instincts of Flynn with the rash arrogance of Clu. Hedlund is surprising good as Flynn the younger, and while the "spurned son looking for his father" role is a bit trite, he makes it work well, and makes a fairly convincing hero. Olivia Wilde is no doubt attractive, but I've yet to see her play a character with much in the way of depth. True, she gets kudos for her role on the TV show House, but that's unfortunately not a show I've been watching and I don't know how good she really is. She seems to be experiencing a career surge right now, but hopefully the roles she gets in the future will be stronger than the mainly useless Quorra, who manages to be both an important plot device and incredibly inconsequential all at the same time. I want to believe Wilde is talented, but I've yet to see her in a role that proves it. Boxleitner appears in no more than a few scenes as Alan, and even fewer as the film's namesake, but that's fine as he's stepping aside to let a younger hero step up. And Michael Sheen is quite entertaining as a flamboyant program who owns a nightclub in the city, which I know sounds weird but you don't think about it when you're watching the movie. Sheen, who has made a name for himself by portraying real-life personalities such as Tony Blair, David Frost and Brian Clough, is positively cheeky in this nice change of pace from his more serious fare.

The digital young Jeff Bridges is scarier than the new, older Jeff Bridges

If there's one complaint to be had with Tron: Legacy, it sadly has to do with the film's main antagonist. Clu is a digitally-represented model of the younger Kevin Flynn. While, when we're seeing Clu on the Grid, he USUALLY looks fine, once in a while - and especially in an early flashback scene when the same style is used to depict a young Flynn - the model looks no more advanced or realistic than those used in the CGI animated film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within... which was back in 2001. When talking about CGI characters, people may make mention of "uncanny valley", which is a robotics term referring to artificial humans. The more realistic and "human-like" you make a synthetic, the more direct a revulsion that creation ellicits from a human audience. It's a problem with most human CGI characters in film, and only children's films seem to not be affected like this, since most human characters in that genre have exaggerrated features to make them more animated. Regardless, being creeped out by the film's antagonist is certainly not a disaster, simply my biggest problem with the film. Some people had problems with the plot and story at parts, but Tron never claimed to be Shakespeare. This was a problem the original film had as well, a weak story overshadowed by state-of-the-art special effects and good acting. I'll let the minor quibbles be handled elsewhere and enjoy the film for what it is.

What, do all digital women just lounge around until needed?

And enjoy it I did! Despite the fact that the original Tron was not a very good film and to outshine it would have not taken an enormous effort, Tron: Legacy took today's technology and told Tron the way people could have only dreamed of doing so almost thirty years ago. The directorial debut of Joseph Kosinski has been a success, if not exactly a perfect opening. Sure the story is silly and hackneyed, I'll fully admit to that. However, the visual spectacle is the main reason you're going to see this film, and the good acting is simply icing the cake. It's got problems, but this sleek, sexy world is unlike anything you've ever seen and even its eventual release on DVD will be impressive if you've got a blu-ray and a sufficiently high-tech entertainment rig. It's my new #10 film for the year, and while it's appearance in the Top 10 will certainly be short-lived, I reiterate my statement that you should absolutely see it in the biggest, loudest movie theater showing it while you can.