Badmovies.org Forum

Unlike many other movies, I did not know much about Oblivion before I saw it.  Tom Cruise + scifi + Morgan Freeman on a wasted earth was about all I knew.  That, and that many of the background scenes were not applied in green screen, but were in fact front-projected on massive 15k screens behind the actors, giving them a sense of context, and making shooting easier in a sense.

I was really, really impressed.  Easily the best Tom Cruise movie I've seen, and I thoroughly enjoyed movies like MI 2, MI4 and Minority Report.  The visuals in this movie are just stunning; the clarity and detail in this movie is insane, being the first movie shot with the new Sony CineAlta F65, a direct competitor to the Red Epics and Arri Alexas which have dominated the market for the past few years.  The entire look of the movie is far from the dark and nasty atmosphere of many others, and yet it retains a sense of suspense.

What can I say that doesn't give away the movie?  The actors all did a super job, as did the director (formerly of Tron Legacy) and the cinematographer.  The script is excellent and editing is very tight.  This is a must-see for the big screen, given the level of detail in the images and colouring.  It has a very immersive yet realistic feeling, due to the 4K shooting process and the way the footage was handled in post.

Go see it if you like scifi, postapocalyptic worlds, one man alone in the cosmos, that kind of thing.  The director/writer said in an interview that he was inspired by movies like The Omega Man and Silent Running, and I think he's really brought that feeling into this century.

That's an interesting fact about the projection I didn't know.  Very cool.  The more I hear about Kosinki's methods the more I like his sense of visual style.

I quite enjoyed this too, and seeing it at IMAX was a treat.  But it still needed a lot more depth in the characters and basic story for me to put it into the 'awesome' category.  It was still above my initial expectations which is really all I can ask for these days.