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Review: Tom Cruise Can’t Lift ‘Oblivion’ Into Orbit

Tom Cruise and Olga Kurylenko in Joseph Kosinski's 'Oblivion' (Universal Pictures)

Tom Cruise and Olga Kurylenko in Joseph Kosinski’s ‘Oblivion’ (Universal Pictures)

Joseph Kosinski and an army of talented technicians have buffed and polished Oblivion to a high-gloss sheen. The film looks and sounds spectacular in true, giant-sized IMAX, as at the Cinemark 17 IMAX Theatre, and is briskly paced so as to allow little time for dawdling. And the lead performance by Tom Cruise bolsters the visuals with gut-level sincerity.

Indeed, Oblivion takes off with much sound and fury, establishing a future in which the Earth repelled an alien invasion, thus “winning” the war, but losing because the planet was irredeemably damaged. Most of surviving mankind has been successfully transplanted over the past 50 years to a distant moon, where water is badly needed. Thus, special machines have been installed, sucking up the oceans for transfer to mankind’s new home. Automated and fully weaponized drones guard the machines from Scavengers, as the remants of the alien invasion force are known. Sometimes the drones need repairs and maintenance, requiring a skeleton crew of drone repairmen to do mop-up duty on Earth.

Jack (Tom Cruise) is one of the repairmen, teamed with Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). They are stationed at a mile-high sky tower; Jack heads off every day to make his rounds in a bubble ship — a cross between a helicopter and a jet fighter — while Victoria remains behind at the sky tower, manning a bank of computers and displays to keep him apprised of any potential dangers, and maintain communication with Sally (Melissa Leo), their supervisor at the space station that overseas the final operations before Earth is permanently abandoned.

With only two weeks left on their assignment, Jack and Victoria are eager to finish up their service and join the rest of mankind, but Jack is plagued by dreams of a distant Earth, before the alien invasion, recurring dreams in which a lovely young woman plays a starring role. One day a spacecraft crashes to Earth, bringing the drones to destroy it, but Jack arrives just in time to realize that humans were in the spacecraft and to rescue one survivor, who looks very much like the lovely young woman in his dreams.

Soon enough, the young woman, Julia (Olga Kurylenko), reveals her true identity to Jack, a shock to his system that is compounded by a meeting with a mysterious “Scavenger” known as Beech (Morgan Freeman). Jack must wrestle with issues of love, romance, identity, and the fate of mankind, and quickly! Because time is running out.

Taking place in a desolate, post-apocalyptic Earth where, nonetheless, many iconic buildings appear, Oblivion presents a sun-bleached future, one that is perhaps explained by the aliens’ destruction of the Moon, but which doesn’t begin to comment on the design of the super-cool weapons, ships, and sky towers. Powered by a rumbling musical score by M83, Oblivion races through sequences with a facile agility, anchored by Cruise’s rock-solid foundation.

While the set-up is sufficiently engaging, perplexing questions start to accumulate quickly as to character motivations, delineations, and narrative destinations. The questions venture too far into spoiler territory for discussion in a review of this sort, but they are pushed aside and then never resolved. This means that the film as a whole is disappointing because Kosinski and multiple screenwriters (of whom only Karl Gajdusek and Michael DeBruyn receive credit for the screenplay, with Kosinski credited for original story) do not bring anything particularly new or startling to the familiar ingredients that they have borrowed from many other science-fiction books and movies.

To mention one aspect that is not a spoiler, Jack goes “off communications” to visit a hidden valley that is a verdant paradise, where he has plenty of water — a commodity we’re led to believe is in short supply on the Earth because it’s being siphoned off to replenish makind on that distant moon — and has built a cabin, filled with mementos that he has salvaged from the ruins of the planet. No explanation is given as to how he has created this water-filled paradise, nor are we informed how he manages to keep it from being detected by the all-knowing drone ships and their networked information from the orbiting space station. It exists as a rather obvious plot device, outside of common sense and reason.

Beyond Cruise, the other members of the cast, which includes Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Zoe Bell, are given only a small range in which to play, which they handle ably. Claudio Miranda, who just won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, brings a similar bright look to the film, which has a relatively small amount of green-screen work. Kosinski and Miranda previously made Tron: Legacy together, which was a similar visual treat.

In only his outing as a feature film director, Joseph Kosinski proves that is more than capable as a world-builder. But he has yet to demonstrate a commensurate vision as far as his characters or stories are concerned. Oblivion is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go as far as it thinks it does.

Oblivion opens April 19, wide across the Metroplex. The only giant-sized, true IMAX location where it is playing is at the Cinemark 17 in Dallas.

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Review: ‘Rock of Ages’ Sings a Familiar Tune

'Rock of Ages'
'Rock of Ages'

‘Rock of Ages’

Do you love cover bands? Do you love karaoke? Do you love musicals? And, most important, do you love 80s hair-band power ballads?

If so, then Rock of Ages is probably right up your alley. Director Adam Shankman, who has specialized in cheerful populist entertainment throughout his career — including the musical adaptation Hairspray and the broad comedy Bringing Down the House — delivers musical numbers well-designed for the big screen, tightly edited in a blitzkrieg fashion that would make any modern action thriller proud.

The screenplay, credited to Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder, Iron Man 2), Chris D’Arienzo (Barry Munday), and Allan Loeb (The Dilemma, Just Go With It), is based on the long-running stage musical (book by D’Arienzo), and opens up the action to a degree.

The setting is The Bourbon Room, a venerable Hollywood hotspot owned by Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin) and run with the assistance of the loyal Lonny (Russell Brand). Lately the club has fallen on hard times, and Dennis is counting on the final gig by the legendary band Arsenal, managed by tough cookie Paul Gill (Paul Giammti), to pump up his coffers. Arsenal’s notoriously unreliable leader, Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise), is breaking up the band to go solo.

The club is also under attack from newly-elected Mayor Mike Whitemore (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Patricia (Catherine Zeta-Jones). The framing device is the romantic relationship of Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough), an aspiring singer and recent arrival from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Drew Boley (Diego Boneta), an aspiring singer and waiter at the club.

In their supporting roles, Baldwin and Brand are snappy and eminently watchable. Their delivery is better than most of their material, but they are such seasoned comedic performers that it’s a pleasure to watch them whenever they appear.

The same cannot be said for the young Ms. Hough and Mr. Boneta. Granted that they are intended to represent the classic archetypes of wholesome Middle America, but they are so bland and vanilla that they tend to disappear into the backdrop rather than sizzle in the lead, as required.

Yet they fare better than Cruise, who is the Jar Jar Binks of the production. He is meant to be a charismatic performer, a sexual god who makes women faint at the sight of him. A portion of that is meant to be over the top, but Cruise is a humorless performer, and the film stops dead whenever he is “acting” dramatic. With his eyes hooded with heavy eye shadow, his age is apparent, and it seems to be a deliberate choice, to emphasize that he’s lost his edge and is slowly tumbling toward oblivion. Everyone is oblivious to the idea that Stacee Jaxx is past his prime, however; he’s still treated as though he’s the bee’s knees.

That speaks to the crux of the film: its effectiveness depends almost entirely upon your reaction to the concept and the music.

For me, the late 80s represents a wasteland era in popular music, a time when adult-oriented radio took hold across the nation’s airwaves and the soul was sucked out of rock ‘n’ roll. Watching Rock of Ages, therefore, is akin to a personal nightmare in which my remote control breaks during an endless episode of VH1’s “I Love the 80s — the Hair-Band Power Ballad Edition.”

Even if the musical aspect of the musical could be put aside, though — admittedly, an impossible proposition — there’s the matter of the cover-band flavoring. In essence, all we have here are secondhand versions of traditional favorites, without the kick that might come from hearing everything live. None of the performances stand on their own; they’re overly-dependent on nostalgia.

As noted, however, some people love cover bands and this particular brand of music and may look forward to humming along with songs like “Sister Christian” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and the like, in which case: Help yourself.

Rock of Ages opens wide throughout the Metroplex on Friday, June 15.

Review: ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’

Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' (Paramount)
Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' (Paramount)

Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' (Paramount)

The fourth installment of the spy series is the best yet, a smashing combination of bravura action sequences, comic jousting, and revenge-minded character drama. And it looks spectacular in IMAX.

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, a secret agent who begins the movie locked up in an Eastern European prison. Quickly he rejoins former teammate Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), who has qualified for field work during Hunt’s imprisonment, and Jane Carter (Paula Patton), an agent with a score to settle. Their first mission together is to crack the Kremlin in search of something vitally important to national security. Things go wrong, of course, the Kremlin suffers a mighty explosion, and Hunt’s team is framed for the crime.

As a result, the President orders the entire covert Impossible Mission Force (IMF) disavowed, putting the team into “Ghost Protocol.” They are joined by high-level analyst Brant (Jeremy Renner), who only survives a deadly attack thanks to Hunt.

The mechanics of the plot are set up swiftly and efficiently, initially establishing a clear motive for Carter, and later providing motivation for Hunt and Brant. The film goes easy on the melodrama, however, never forgetting that its main mission is to entertain with outlandish action sequences.

Director Brad Bird, who first came to prominence with the terrific and heartwarming animated picture ‘The Iron Giant,’ subsequently won Academy Awards for his work on ‘The Incredibles’ and ‘Ratatouille.’ While he may seem an odd choice to helm a big-budget, live-action blockbuster sequel, it makes perfect sense if you consider ‘The Incredibles’ as an action movie.

Like ‘The Incredibles,’ ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ boasts multiple action sequences that are defined by their fluid choreography. We always know who’s involved, where they are in physical relation to each other, and where they are in relation to the geography of the setting. That means the stakes are higher, and it pushes the tension level up, all because we can see clearly what’s happening and we know what will happen if a suspect is lost, for example.

The script, credited to Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (and reportedly based on a treatment by the uncredited J.J. Abrams and Tom Cruise), builds on the spy-chase-grab framework with good team interplay. Unlike previous installments, the new movie places a refreshing emphasis on the importance of teamwork — and on the reality of things going wrong from time to time, and the need to improvise in the field. That gives the movie a more humane grounding, even as the action frequently takes flight into the world of unbelievable fantasy.

Yet it’s all convincing, faux-reality in the service of mass-market entertainment, and it never insults the audience. ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ is an unadulterated pleasure.

‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ opens today only in IMAX theaters — which is the preferred format — before expanding wide next Wednesday, December 21 across the Metroplex.

Review: Knight and Day

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in 'Knight and Day'

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in 'Knight and Day'

Tom Cruise as a spy gone crazy? I totally buy it.

From all outward appearances, Cruise has spent the past few years casually dismantling his carefully constructed public persona. On screen, he projects a very strong sense of forceful personality – that million dollar smile, that finely-honed body, that polite and righteous self-confidence — to the extent that it’s been difficult to buy him as a fictional character. As he approaches his 48th birthday, it’s tempting to dismiss him out of hand.

But he tries awfully hard to project the travails of Roy Miller, discredited FBI agent, in James Mangold’s Knight and Day. If he and Cameron Diaz, who plays the bewilderingly dumb garage owner June Havens, cannot completely shed their baggage as “Movie Stars” more than actors, it seems churlish not to credit their efforts.

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