Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 5:08 pm 
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OBLIVION was released six weeks ago so there's hardly any point in reviewing it now, but I have finally seen it. Here are my reactions.

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OLGA KURYLENKO AND TOM CRUISE IN OBLIVION

Visuals almost worthy of Kubrick; a script not up to that level

Yes, Oblivion has had mixed reviews; we've had time enough to see that. And why should this be? For the obvious reason that will quickly emerge if you skim some of the press. Kosinski's film is visually superb, a gleamingly perfect blend of CGI and humans. If you collect stunning sci-fi movie images, you may need to see it. It aspires to greatness in its narrative, however, but winds up only with a lot of loose ends.

To my mind the really worthy sci-fi films are few and far between, and glorious special effects enhance a good story but do not replace it. In fact simpler means may help to put over a good story. This was shown with Duncan Jonnes's similarly themed 2009 debut film Moon, also about someone doing maintenance on an uninhabitable or uninhabited planet, or planet-esque entity. Moon isn't much about looks or effects, though it has them. It's about situation and acting, and it has them, quite memorably. Compare these two films and you'll find many of the same ideas better and more clearly handled in Moon without the breezy and pretty but perhaps largely distracting zooming around in space vehicles that Kosinski seems so intent on providing. Well, of course Top Gun is one of Tom Cruise's greatest triumphs: this is, after all, a kind of sci-fi Top Gun. But Kosinski isn't intent on space machismo. He has higher aims.

Oblivion is from a graphic novel, not a fact that usually thrills me, but this one is by the director himself, which offers the promise that he's working from his own material. Alas, that benefit diminishes when we learn it's an unpublished graphic novel, and then auteurism all but vanishes when we are further apprised that, as it turns out, the screenplay is a group effort by Joseph Kosinski, William Monahan, Karl Gajdusek, amd Michael Arndt. Who's Kosinski? Well, his previous, debut, film was Tron: Legacy. Uh-oh; that one was dead in the water, much though I root for Garrett Hedlund, and good though Jeff Bridges can be. This film is certainly more splendid than Tron: Legacy, but it has the same failings, even if they're not quite as glaring.

Now, what of the supposed problem of Tom Cruise? Call me crazy, tell me about all the "noise" of rumors and scandals about him, for me he still has a good deal of glamour and pizzazz. And that's handy, because most of the time as "Jack Harper" (whom I overall preferred to his recent "Jack Reacher") has to act in a vacuum, or in a drone bubble flying in nonexistent CGI spaces, or walking across a desolate "After Earth" landscape talking to his partner or his boss on a remote pickup. I refer you to Manohla Dargis's diss of Cruise, which taints her Oblivion review. She has just dissed After Earth, even more intensely, perhaps with more justification, but she seems prone to pre-judging films a bit too much lately on the basis of their stars' reputations. I do not think the presence of Tom Cruise in Oblivion is a problem. Get over it. Of course I'd rather this were called Moon and the star were Sam Rockwell, but that's just because Moon is a better movie. Oblivion has enough problems without picking on the cast.

As his partner Victoria (usually simplified to the modernistic sounding "Vika") is the most interesting cast member, Andrea Riseborough. Risenborough, who is English, has worked a lot in TV, including my favorite grumpy doctor series, "Doc Martin." Then she seems to have virtually exploded onto the screen over the past four years, in films ranging from the spooky sci-fi story Never Let Me Go, the lively women's lib period film Made in Dagenham and the atmospheric, also period, Brighten Rock -- all released in 2010 -- to suavely and with great composure impersonating Wallace Simpson (the Duchess of Windsor) in W.E., followed by another period film, this time set in Wales during the War, Resistance, those two both released in 2011. In 2012 she was in Shadow Dancer and Disconnect; in the latter playing a neurotic American lady, and that was the first time I noticed her. She was good. Shadow Dancer has just come out in this country, but released in the UK last summer. It's directed by the terrific documentary filmmaker James Marsh, and has gotten great reviews, but I haven't seen it yet; it's about the IRA in the Nineties. Playing the chilly, immaculate, almost clone-like Victoria must have been a walk for her, except for the same difficulty Tom Cruise faced: she must do most of her acting talking to a bank of electrical messages and diagrams. She does this, well, immaculately, and is it a surprise that she has four more movies soon coming out?

This is largely a two-hander at first and to say there is little chemistry between Risenborough and Cruise would be irrelevant: there's not meant to be. It would be unfair not to mention the other actors who later appear, first Olga Kurylenko, who is Ukrainian, is pretty, has a big wide mouth, and is in a lot of movies lately too. She is most known for Malick's To the Wonder, in which she hardly speaks, and that's about the size of it for Olga. It suffices that her Julia has a bit more warmth than Vika, to justify her role. I should also mention Morgan Freeman, except he doesn't have much to do other than talk in his Morgan Freeman voice, wear shades, and smoke a big cigar. Where they get cigars on post-apocalyptic Earth is just one of those many questions better not asked. There is also Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as one Sykes, whose name you may not have caught. No matter: if he does anything other than pose with a sci-fi rifle and show off nicely slicked-down and tied-back hair, I missed it.

To reiterate by citing a release-date review: Andrew O'Hehir is right: "Oblivion is a technical triumph rather than a philosophical breakthrough, demonstrating how beautifully digital effects can be blended with real people and real sets, demonstrating that neither Tom Cruise nor the 1970s will ever die, and announcing the unexpected arrival of a major science-fiction director." Yes the 1970's and also vinyl records, which may come back in another sixty years. I'm not quite sure of the last point, though: it's hard to say Kosinski's "arrived" as a sci-fi director when he made one previously, and neither film quite qualifies as "major." But the images are razor-sharp, as has been often pointed out, and are notable not only for effective digital transfer but the use of some very good lenses. It is not a surprise to learn this movie was shot by Claudio Miranda of the visually glorious Life of Pi. The music, however, a mix of soaring strings and hammering Taiko-type drums, is conventional and intrusive.

The plot is a post-apocalyptic job and a very rote explanation by Cruise's voiceover fills us in at the start. Something went terribly wrong: I got that. There was a war for planet Earth and we "won," except that we destroyed most of the planet in the process. I got that, and it sounds like a pretty likely scenario, all in all, I'm afraid, the way things are going. Earthlings -- this less likely -- now all live on some moon of another planet (Saturn's allegedly earthling-friendly Titan) and are just maintaining guard over Earth power stations using drones, which Jack and Vika are on a tour of duty to repair, Jack doing the field work and Vica the backup communications and liaison with HQ represented by the suspiciously chummy and down-home-sounding Sally (Melissa Leo).

It's best not to go into too much detail about what happens, out of fear of "spoilers," the bugaboo of those who use surprise as a substitute for thought-provokingness -- but also because frankly it doesn't finally all make sense. The baddies Vika and Jack are stationed on the space platform to weed out are Scavengers, or "Scavs" for short, which sounds like Scabs, and that might have been more vivid, though sci-fi does love its made-up names and entities. They just appear as pod vehicles like the ones Jack rides. If you want fun baddies, go to the lurid District 9. I don't exactly understand -- I'm sure someone could explain to me -- why a man in his forties has a melancholic longing for a world that vanished six decades ago, which he seems dimly to remember. This is doubtless a potentially evocative theme -- Moon's protagonist too has a homesickness, and the Earth-longings of banished Earthlings is a favorite, and resonant, science fiction theme. Kosinski & Co.'s development of it is too complicated and too unresolved in the details. The coincidences and complexities were too much for me. Jack and his girlfriend do live happily ever after. Moon has a darker and more powerful ending, which requires a courage that in Kosinski's case was squandered on technical ambitions. And you don't get this kind of budget with a downbeat ending.

Oblivion, 124 mins., released April 10-12, 2013 (international), April 19 (U.S.) (Universal).

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