OBLIVION Is Big, Beautiful And Uninspired

"How can a man die better / then facing fearful odds / for the ashes of his fathers / and the temples of his Gods."

As soon as the credits started to roll on Oblivion, I turned to my friend Jeff and said, "You know, one of these days someone's going to give Joseph Kosinski a decent script, and he's gonna make a hell of a movie."

I'm a big fan of the original Tron, so I was pretty excited at the prospect of a sequel with old man Jeff Bridges.  Kosinski was handed the reigns to Tron: Legacy and it turned out...disappointing.  But you have to admit it's a very good looking movie.  Most of the problems stem not from Kosinski's visuals, but from a script that's lackluster at best and a leading man who looked uncomfortable in his own skin.  (Garrett Hedlund looks far more compelling in smaller budget stuff like On The Road and Inside Llewyn Davies, so maybe he should just steer clear of franchise studio pictures.)

Pretty much all the credit/blame for Oblivion goes directly to Kosinski, as it's almost entirely his creation.  He wrote the graphic novels which served as the treatment for this film, and he wrote the script along with talented guys like Michael Arndt and Karl Gajdusek.  Also, I will fully admit that I just plain love Tom Cruise.  Yeah, in real life the guy might be absolutely batshit crazy, but I could care less so long as he keeps giving us entertaining performances.  And whatever you may think of him personally, you simply cannot accuse him of ever phoning it in for a paycheck.  Whenever he's on screen, Cruise absolutely throws himself into the role 1012% (that's a precise calculation) so that even his less successful films can usually boast solid work from the actor.  One of my favorite single Cruise moments is at the end of Mission: Impossible III, when he's running along the banks of a river in China to save his wife and the guy is just HAULING ASS.  Most actors will pace themselves in a scene like that, because they know they're gonna have to do multiple takes from multiple angles so they can stitch the shots together to create excitement and tension.  But here it's just one long tracking shot and Cruise doesn't break stride for even a second.  In a way, that one shot tells you everything you need to know about Cruise.

I'll say this much for Oblivion: it's a fucking gorgeous film.  Watching this movie in anything other than IMAX (2D!) is almost a disservice to the film itself, if that's any indication.  Kosinski specializes in breathtaking imagery of tremendous depth and scale, so it really does behoove you to watch this as large and as crisp as humanly possible.  (This is the opposite of an airplane movie, although I have no doubt that it will be appearing on JetBlue before long.)  Kosinski strikes me as more of a technical, George Lucas-y director than an emotional, Steven Speilberg-y director; that is to say that he seems more interested in experimenting with the look and feel of his movies than he is in crafting memorable characters and stories.  Put another way, he's so in love with building worlds that he neglects the people in them.  Here's a taste of what I'm talking about.  Above the post-apocalyptic scenery, both lush and desolate, is the Sky Tower.  It's a glass-encased home on a dizzying spindle where Jack Harper and Victoria (Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough, respectively) live and work to maintain a series of drones and generators which provide power to the last human colony on Titan.  Normally the stunning views from such a location would be achieved digitally and the actors would be performing on a large green screen stage, but Kosinksi decided to go in a much cooler, old-school direction:

I love everything about that set-up.  It's so smart in a number of different ways.  Also, I want to live there.

That being said, the story and the characters both just sort of lay there flat.  Since I'm behind the curve here (I expect the film will be out of theaters sometime in the next two weeks) I'm not gonna run through the story and it's various reveals, but most reviews have already pointed out that the plot borrows liberally from numerous other/better sci-fi films like Moon, Wall-E, and Beneath The Planet Of The Apes.  To be honest, that didn't bother me so much; sci-fi is constantly drawing ideas and stories from the same communal well.  Sure it would have been nice if Kosinksi could have taken all those familiar elements and elevated them in some way, or put his own spin on them.  But when it's all said and done, it doesn't feel like lazy storytelling, just uninspired.  Besides, these are the kinds of concepts I always enjoy watching, even if they're inadequately explored.  Time travel is inherently cool, so pretty much any movie involving time travel instantly becomes interesting to me.  (There's no time travel here, it's just an example.)

By now it's clear that Oblivion is not a movie that's going to set the world on fire, but I think it's entertaining enough.  Cruise isn't amazing, but that's the fault of the script, not his performance.  Andrea Riseborough gives a lovely, fragile performance as Cruise's partner, especially when Olga Kurylenko's mystery woman shows up.  Morgan Freeman gets a cool wardrobe and a cigar, while Melissa Leo and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau are both squandered talents.  Also, Zoe Bell may or may not have been silently standing around the entire time, but I didn't notice her until three minutes before the movie ended.  It's Kurylenko that truly feels like the weak link here.  She feels like she's following in the footsteps of Thandie Newton, an actress who's never given a performance I've enjoyed.  Granted Kurylenko is better here than she was in Quantum Of Solace, but not by much.  I've got Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths queued up to watch tonight and I'm hoping to catch up with Terrence Malick's To The Wonder as well.  If neither of those guys can coax a convincing performance out of her, I think that's probably game, set, match.

And let's be honest: it's nice to see a big budget, (visually) ambitious sci-fi movie that's not based on a pre-existing property.  Those are the movies that always stretch the boundaries of our imagination, and these days such efforts feel few and far between.

At least we still have Elysium to look forward to.

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Title: Oblivion
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Zoe Bell
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: IMAX (Jordan's - Reading)

IRON SKY, Because Moon Nazis!

"Remember me?  The moon spook you turned into a snow flake?"

I was getting ready for work this morning when I got an automated call from my office warning me that MBTA service had been suspended.  Moreover, Boston residents were advised to remain in their homes and only open the door for uniformed, identified law enforcement officers.  I immediately checked Twitter and turned on the local news to discover that, after photographs of the two Marathon bombing suspects were released by the FBI yesterday, the two young men shot and killed MIT police officer Sean Collier before stealing a car and fleeing to nearby Watertown.  There they engaged in a shootout with local authorities, firing assault weapons and tossing explosive devices (including another pressure cooker bomb) out into the streets.  Officers shot and killed one suspect, 26 year old Tamerlan Tsarnaev of Chechnya, and there's currently a massive manhunt underway to find the second suspect, Tamerlan's 19 year old brother Dzhokhar.  (Both have been living in Cambridge for a number of years and Dzhokhar became an American citizen last year on Septemeber 11th.)  The entire Boston area is on lockdown at the moment, so Jamie and I have been home watching TV nonstop since 8:30am.  It was going to be a pretty slow day at work, so I had planned to play some pretty serious catch up today.

So much for that idea.

It's been a few hours now and there haven't been many developments.  As the hours pass, it's starting to feel more and more like this thing might drag on through the weekend, which is a fairly daunting prospect.  Watching TV has never been so exhausting.  I've seen some friends start sharing funny videos and livestreams of kittens, looking for some kind of entertaining alternative to the insanity taking place on outside.  So if you're like me and you're starting to suffer from news footage fatigue, allow me to make a suggestion: Switch over to Netflix Instant and throw on Iron Sky.  If you're looking for something fun and maybe a bit silly, this fits the bill pretty perfectly.  Don't believe me?  I have four words for you:

Nazis...FROM THE MOON!

Let me be clear: this is by no means a "good movie."  However, credit where credit is due: they really fucking go for it.  Remember when Snakes On A Plane was a thing?  The premise sounded so good that the internet went rightfully bonkers for it.  Unfortunately the movie itself was pretty disappointing.  In many ways it was reminiscent of a Syfy Original movie starring the likes of Debbie Gibson and Lou Diamond Phillips, something based entirely on a funny title with no actual filmmaking taking place.  But Iron Sky doesn't rest on the laurels of its hilarious premise, that of a group of Nazis who took refuge on the dark side of the moon and are planning an invasion of Earth despite knowing next to nothing about the last seventy years of humanity.  Yes, there's some very self aware humor, particularly everything having to do with black American astronaut James Washington, but it's also got something to say about political propaganda and American foreign policy.  But at the end of the day this thing knows on which side its bread is buttered; the Nazi death ship is powered by cell phones and the story culminates in a completely absurd international space battle.

The movie's tongue is planted firmly in its cheek, but director Timo Vourensola clearly isn't setting out to make a shitty movie.  All things considered, the effects work is actually pretty decent and while the dialogue often leaves something to be desired, the story moves along at a pretty good pace and escalates in a way that really does not disappoint.  Plus you have to be impressed at any movie that somehow manages to turn the Nazis into sympathetic heroes.  Unfortunately, the weakest link here is the cast.  The great Udo Kier, playing Hitler's lunar successor, is surrounded by a group of moderately talented unknowns, and while it's not enough to fully derail the movie, it's pretty hard to ignore.  Julia Dietze and Gotz Otto are serviceable as our lead Nazis and Stephanie Paul does a caricature of Sarah Palin that's on point but feels incredibly dated and ultimately goes nowhere.  The weakest links are definitely Christopher Kirby as astronaut Washington and Peta Sergeant as campaign spinmaster turned military general Vivian Wagner.  They get by far the broadest, most over the top material but tragically they lack the chops to really sell this stuff.  For example, Sergeant gets an incredible costume change in the last half hour, but the whole thing ends up falling pretty flat because she clearly has no idea what to do with herself.  It's a real shame.  With a proper cast and minimal tweaking, Iron Sky could have been something truly special.

In the end, all that really matters is that it's FUN.  It might not be a top notch film, but it's certainly not for lack of trying.  Plenty of movies fall short of their potential, but there are too many mainstream studio releases that just feel straight up lazy.  You have to give these guys points for putting in the effort to make the best Moon Nazi movie possible.  Everyone is working so damn hard that despite the film's obvious flaws, Iron Sky ends up being downright endearing and more than a little bit adorable.  So grab some friends, pour some drinks, and fire up the Netflix.

After a week like this, we could all use a few laughs.


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Title: Iron Sky
Director: Timo Vourensola
Starring: Julia Dietze, Udo Kier, Christopher Kirby, Gotz Otto, Peta Sergeant, Stephanie Paul
Year Of Release: 2012
Viewing Method: Netflix Instant (TV)