Oblivion

1) I recollect that I went to see the movie Oblivion today. It was actuallly a visually very lovely film with the post apocalyptic destroyed Earth landscapes but I thought it was a but strange to think that the sky scrapers that formed the sides of the canyons amidst deep layers of earth or silt that buried the cities seemed a bit abstract, surely those exposed buildings would have collapsed under the weight a long time ago but their presence at least seemed poetic, quite wonderful visions.

The story line appeared to have a plot twist in common with the movie Moon, so it was somewhat a Philip K Dickian storyline. The flying machines had a wonderful sense of design to them. Maybe the truth about what the true villains seem to be looked as if they were running out of budget or ideas but was at least displayed on a grand scale. 

In one way the movie was utterly ridiculous and pointless and a complete load of cobblers but on another level it was quite a piece of wonder and seeing on the big screen certainly extended that abstract sense of wonder and perplexity that one might experience, and the almost abstract revelations in the plot that maybe if one has seen a good number of scifi movies it all might make sense where the ideas are coming from. 

Maybe if one admired such Tom Cruise films as Vanilla Sky one might enjoy this movie very much and those who remember the scene at the end of the original Planet of the Apes film where the Statue of Liberty is found almost completely buried might marvel at this film. Recognisable second hand ideas served up with 21st century vigour that those who are happy with Tom Crusie movies might indeed admire. I could very watch this again soon at the cinema and will get the blu-ray disc for sure.

2) Weeks later I am still overwhelmed by the feelings of this movie, the wonders of the post apocalyptic landscape and the puzzling half understood revelation about how real as humans Tom Cruise and his red headed partner were. Perhaps the details about the back story given by Morgan Freeman's character Beech about the truth of Jack didn't need to be completely understood by the likes of myself, I allowed half of it to remain as half misunderstood and misheard fragments because ultimately the truth can be only boring. 

The strange space craft with the many thousands of Toms being grown inside didn't really interest me that much, I had seen better visions at the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture when the Enterprise entered V'ger and when Neo entered the Machine City at the end of The Matrix. With the likes of Cloud Atlas suddenly which brought the watcher to assemble fragments of stories from over many aeons, this film Oblivion almost invited the watcher to do the same with the fragments of the lives of Jack, Julia and Vika.

I thought that the red head woman who played Vika was an interesting choice in the movie and quite a curious face, I really hadn't heard of her before let alone thought that I'd seen her in anything. She certainly looked nicer in this movie than she did in Never Let Me Go. Someone informed me that she looks a bit like a young Bette Davis and yes I see what that's about