Although Universal’s publicity department has asked that journalists refrain from spilling the secrets of Oblivion, the major revelations, once they arrive, will hardly surprise anyone familiar with Total Recall, The Matrix and the countless other sci-fi touchstones hovering over this striking, visually resplendent adventure. Pitting the latest action-hero incarnation of Tom Cruise against an army of alien marauders, director Joseph Kosinski’s follow-up to Tron: Legacy is a moderately clever dystopian mindbender with a gratifying human pulse, despite some questionable narrative developments along the way. The less-than-airtight construction and conventional resolution may rankle genre devotees, though hardly to the detriment of robust overall B.O. more »
Yesterday, the first trailer for Tom Cruise's upcoming science fiction film Oblivion was released online, and if you're anything like us (and the rest of the internet), you'll immediately note that it has absolutely nothing whatsoever in common with Wall-E. No sir, nothing at all.
Oblivion follows Cruise's Jack Harper (his second Jack-namedm character in a row? Uh oh, typecasting), a maintenance man assigned to clean up planet earth in the aftermath of some kind of terrible apocalyptic event. Jack apparently spends his days wallowing through the nostalgic remains of human civilization. No doubt he'll end up singing 'Hello Dolly' right after the little speech about the Super Bowl he gives in the trailer. His mission is less than a fortnight away from completion when a beautiful - and yes, the official description uses the word "attractive" - stranger crash lands on Earth, drawing Jack into a conspiracy that pits him against the authority he serves, and a group of Leather fetishists led by noted kindness-and-gravitas dispenser Morgan Freeman.
Oblivion is helmed by Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski, which is about as neutral an indication of the movie's overall quality as you can get. I'm guessing it'll be yet another Logan's Run ripoff, with the same kind of ridiculous 'everything's better and the revolution worked in like 5 minutes' outcome, minus Michael York's lithe frame and blond locks. Originally planned for June, 2013, it's been moved up to April 12, 2013. Until then, Internet: please get to work on the recut Oblivion-as-Wall-E trailer the world desperately needs.
