Oblivion (2013)

I don't even know where to start from. The impression that 2013 is a good year for SciFi seems to be a good point, at least quantity related. "Oblivion" was the first released. It's good that not the last too ...

I have to admit that I was pleasantly impressed by the story. Even if the trailer gives enough info, it's far from giving everything, especially related to the twists in the movie. In brief, we have a pair - him & her - assigned for surveying Earth after a war which caused the evacuation of the entire population. Their role is to ensure maintenance for a set of protection drones which are programmed to eradicate what's left of the enemy resistance. Meanwhile, a series of extraction platforms gather the necessary resources needed to establish the new human colony. Other info: for security reasons, the memory of the two was wiped when they were sent to Earth, and their activity is monitored from a gigantic space station located on the orbit. That's all. I won't say more. Well, maybe just that it's not an action packed SciFi like "heroic fight against the alien invasion ; we win ; the end". No .. the story is nice .. there is romance, some nuances (relatively vague, it's true, but still there) of a psy thriller a la PKD, twists as I was saying. But, there's a problem ...

Actually, two. The script and the directing. I would be extremely critic towards the movie, but I'm stopped by the fact that the screenwriter an the director is also the story's author. So, for that we cut a bit from the guilt. To be fair, everything's rolling on pretty well up to two thirds of the movie. When I was starting to believe that I have chances to witness one of the best SciFi in the last years. Point where .. avalanche .. everything you can get .. cliche lines, dumb syncs a la Hollywood (pay attention to the last two drone attacks), inconsistencies in the action, overdramatized scenes, overacting ... everything. True, the mess is sort of saved by some twists, but these have also downsides (because they add to the inconsistencies - we have DNA tracking capacity from outer space, but to differentiate between a man and a woman at a distance of a few meters is impossible - it will get some sens when you watch the movie, and we have others). So ...

So, I'll try to give some credit to the story and imagine it's ending in another movie done properly :) As in with the ending written differently in the script. Because, as feeling for the first two thirds is after all one of the nicest SciFi's I've seen in a while. You have a dystopian air that gives enough intensity to feel it like a silence between two storms. A romance on top, which, as weird as may sound, remembered me of a scene in "The English Patient" (weird for a SciFi, but if the movie is able to get that from me has a subjective plus). And you have at least a twist which is not announced by anything, it's quite original, and hard to foresee .. but again, the script looks like forgetting it quickly enough after to cut almost all the added value ...

Rating: 3 out of 5