Oblivion

Title: Oblivion

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Screenwriters: Joseph Kosinski, Karl Gajdusek, Michael Arndt

Producers: Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Duncan Henderson, Barry Levine, Dave Morrison, Joseph Kosinski

Cast: Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko y Morgan Freeman

Popcorn Movie Rating: 5

A Deception in Every Aspect

By: David Maldonado

This was meant to be the movie that would make us said: “the summer season has started” but it’s turned out to be the greatest deception of 2013.

The year is 2077. Earth is empty except for Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). They are in charge of fixing the drones that patrols the planet looking for alien life form and eliminated them. They are the only ones left after the humans departed from the ruins of the planet after being invaded and needed to destroy half the Earth to save ourselves. Jack is confused by his dreams, dreams of the world before he was born, or maybe does are not dreams but memories, he doesn’t know. His world is about to turn upside down when he discover a ship with capsules with humans inside and that the drones he’s been fixing are killing them.

Maybe I make it sound even more interesting of what it really is. This movie is the one thing a movie cannot be: boring. In the past few days I’ve heard in the media that this film was good but the first act actually was kind of slow. How wrong they’ve been. The whole movie is boring, second act is even worse than the first and the third is so bad directed that it makes you wish get over it. The screenplay is focused on the solitude of the protagonist when it should have been focus on the action, what Jack will do when he discover that nothing is what is seems.

I blame entirely the screenwriters. It is sad to say that one of the screenwriters is in fact the Director Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy). Even saddest is to say that he actually is one of the creators of the graphic novel the film is based on. This is the proof that it is bad idea for a writer to direct his own movies. Take David S. Goyer for example. He is the hell of a writer, but all the movies he has directed sucks.

But if you think that is some serious stuff, you must know then that the second screenwriter is no other than the Academy Award Winner, Michael Arndt. Yes, the same guy that wrote Littler Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3. The same man that is about to give us the adaptation of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and must not forget, that is the same man that Disney picked up to write Star Wars Episode VII. I have only one thing to say to this man: make them take out your good name from Oblivion or stay away from the sci-fi genre. The only one writer that is safe is Karl Gajdusek, because he only has written one film and it wasn’t very big. So he is just a rookie making mistakes.

Kosinski definitely got an F on directing. To be honest, the special effects and the production design were brilliant, amazing. That said, this film is full with unnecessary repeated scene (like Jack dreams). I can’t even remember when was the last time I felt insulted on a movie theater. Mr. Director, the audience is not dump, we don’t need to see a man closing a capsule, lifting up the capsule, walking outside with the capsule and putting it on a spaceship. Showing only that Jack closed the capsule and then we see it on the ship was enough to figure that he took it there. This movie is full of dump actions like the one I have just described.

For those who know a little about screenwriting I will tell you why is this film unbalanced. What in the film is the end of the first act should have been the inciting incident. What in the film is the first twist of the second act should have been the end of the first act. What in the movie is the last twist of the second act it should have been the twist of the first half of the second act. And the third act, well, if only were better directed. Seriously, the very last scene was unnecessary, dump, and nothing special. The film should have ended in the scene before that.

If you’re hoping to hear some good things about Oblivion I can say that it has 2.5 things that were good. The first one was the visuals (already said that). The second one was the cast. It was an enormous cast, full of good actors and actress, but bad directed. And the .5 is for the score. The music was good, but our great director turn it off when it was about to get better. Like he did in every single action sequence.

Try not to see this on the movie, safe your money. This is the greatest deception of 2013to the date. I can honestly say that because the person who thought that G.I. Joe 2 was going to be good after the disaster of the first movie just because The Rock was on it, well, that person is an innocent soul. But this movie had big expectations and got short on every point, even using Morgan Freeman was shameful, he only have 10 minutes on screen.