Friday, April 26, 2013

"Oblivion" (2013)

Starring Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko and Morgan Freeman
Written by Joseph Kosinski, William Monahan, Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Rated PG-13 - Violence, language, brief nudity
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Trailer

In the year 2077, the Earth has been abandoned in the wake of a devastating war against an alien race. Though humanity was victorious, the cost of winning was great - civilization has been destroyed, and large swaths of the world are uninhabitable. The survivors were evacuated to a massive space station known as the Tet.

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and Victoria Olsen (Andrea Riseborough) live in Tower 49, still on the surface, the last humans remaining on Earth. Their job is to monitor and maintain a series of massive machines converting the Earth's oceans into fuel for nuclear reactors that will allow the humans aboard the Tet to leave Earth behind once and for all and settle on Saturn's moon, Titan. Though the war is over, Jack still has to deal with remnant alien forces on the surface, who, of late, have been downing his drones and stealing their power supplies.

Things get weirder when the aliens manage to send a message into space, and soon enough a human ship crashes to the ground. There is a lone survivor: a young woman named Julia (Olga Kurylenko), who somehow knows Jack's name. More confusing for Jack is why the drones attempted to kill her when she landed. Jack defies orders, and the pleading of his lover, Victoria, in order to get answers. What he finds is unbelievable: a secret colony of humans living underground in the remains of old New York City, led by Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman) who tells Jack an incredible tale that rock's Jack's life and beliefs to the core.

But now that Jack knows the truth about his existence, he can't simply go back to the life he knew. And the future of the human race will be placed squarely in his hands.