Oblivion review

     Webster’s dictionary has 2 definitions for “oblivion.” The first one listed is “the fact or condition of forgetting or having forgotten”, and the second one is “the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown.” There are elements from the new film “Oblivion” that are applicable to both definitions, and therein lay the depth that the movie brings to its collection of standard science fiction tropes.

     Science fiction movies, when at their best, blend great technology, visuals and sound, and most importantly, the exploration of Big Ideas (George, you knew this…). “Oblivion” covers the first elements well – director Joseph Kosinski has a distinctive visual style, depicting futuristic technology in clean lines, the bright clarity of transparent views, and simple, but effective depictions of human interaction with future tech. Evocative of the impressive, if one-note visuals of Tron: Legacy, the scenes that involve the built environment of the humans are more than effective in communicating a great sense of future control and comfort, with a definite lack of warmth, poised above a wasteland Earth. The scene involving a clear bottomed, suspended pool is especially cool looking too.

     Kosinski does a nice job of contrasting the technology at the hands of our favorite scientologist Cruise (or is it Travolta?), with the gritty wasteland that Earth has become. Cruise’s character must get out into that wasteland to accomplish what he has been tasked to do, and so those scenes are relatively simple but point us not too subtly toward this sci fi movie’s Big Ideas.

     Unfortunately for Kosinski and Cruise (and a Lannister too!) this movie’s story treads well-worn sci fi ground. It appealed to me, as lately I have been very focused on life, its meaning, and life’s end. We all hope (or is it fear?) that we won’t be forgotten. We all know in our mind’s eye that we are all unique, yet everyone dies and that there is no escape from the ultimate forgetting. That knowledge however offers no solace to the panic that wells up in me when I really think about the unknown and potential nothing of death. The movie doesn’t address it head on, and offers a convenient, and not altogether satisfying “solution” to the forgetting.

     I have never really understood the notion of “dying well.” I understand bravery and sacrifice, and the impulse of people to protect others at their peril. We as humans rightly glorify those who have given their lives in the defense of freedom, in the defense of justice, in the defense of the defenseless. Those of us who are left grant our imprimatur upon such deaths, saying that such deaths have value, above and beyond “normal” deaths because of their circumstances. We, however, are all in the exact same place in the time-space continuum at the exact moment we die. The actions we take when alive are what can help us keep from being forgotten, and those very same actions help ourselves to never forget. Oblivion isn’t an altogether unique or even memorable movie, but a simple story, told pretty well. Titles can strike a little too close to home sometimes, eh?