Oh my f-ing Goodness! A reviewer that actually spoils the movie he's reviewing... I am literally unsubscribing to all the other twats I've been listening to and... oke, maybe that's a bit too much. But I've been waiting for a guy that is funny, relevant and is not afraid to spoil the movie if he has to in his review. I am soo happy I found you with this sad excuse for a movie Cheers!
Um, Movie Bob, captain dude sir, in all seriousness why don't you just give The Lone Ranger a miss? I'm not going to hold your feet to the fire over it. I enjoy hearing you enthusiastically praise or trash something and am reliably less entertained when your reviews can be summarized as 'meh, walked in knowing it was drek, walked out knowing I was right.' Personally, I think the Lone Ranger looks like crap. Feel free to expose me to something I'm not aware of that I ought to know about. Maybe an old western, a genre of which I am painfully ignorant.
So... it's exactly the movie I expected after seeing the trailer? A few of the minor details were off, but everything else was spot on. I will probably see it on Netflix or something, but I have just no desire to pay money specifically to see it.
Thanks Bob! Saved me another wasted ticket buddy! I think Prometheus was a big enough disappointment for me for awhile. I really want Pacific Rim to be as awesome as my instincts are tingling about.
Yeah pretty much this. When the spoiler warning first went up I did my usual reaction and paused it, but then realized I could pretty much guess what the spoilers are or at the very least if I choose to watch the movie knowing them wouldn't be detrimental to my enjoyment, so I clicked play and resumed watching.
It does? Hmm, to me it actually looked WORSE than oblivion. Honestly, both look rather bland and predictable. I've got good money on Will Smith being "dead all along" and "after Erf" really being "before erf".
Sorry bob [I think that in my personal opinion that] you're completely wrong on the subject,saw the movie with my family we all absolutely loved it and it's now one of our new fav sci-fi movies.
Where the characters stereotypical yeah but they played their parts well enough that I still loved and cared for them-The visual and designs were breathtaking sure they have been done before that they put new life into it-and finally the story obvious in point yeah and cracks a bit under heavy scrutiny but all movies even the really good ones have certain aspects where it doesn't quite work [why do stormtrooper's always miss].
Hey mate, since yours is the only favorable comment on this movie, a thumbs up for me, you're not alone.
A message for Bob:
Just seen it. Literally. Just got home from the cinema. In the subway I just had to read a few reviews, just to confirm to myself how awesome this movie is. Was horrified by the reviews. Looked on Escapist, saw your review. Couldn't watch it there (no headphones) so as soon as I got home, booted up the pc, spammed the escapist link and watched. And... Bob, I'm really disappointed with you. I know, fuck me, right?
I'm a hipster, the real breed, not your iPhone stuff. But most of the times, I'm passive. I don't go babbling how much I hate Beiber (never listened to the guy, so how can I?), but yes, I am anti-mainstream. It used to be fun. I was the kind of guy who watched Gagnam Style before it hit 3 million views (and never again after that). I can deal with the world being stupid and giving that crap 1 billion views. FINE... I'm also fine with hating most MTV music, because I'm a pianist so I actually know what music theory is and how utterly bad this "music" is. FINE.
I hated Deus Ex HR, I loathed Avatar, I spat at Saving Private Ryan, I got pissed on Bioshock Infinite, I bloody hate Robert Downey Jr, I got bored at Cabin in the Woods. Whatever. Just because others like stuff that I don't, whatever man...
But what about stuff that I loved and others hate? Things like Sucker Punch(actually EVERY Zack Snyder movie). Now that was a wake up call. And now this movie. It's one thing to be called a weirdo because I love classical music, by people who don't actually listen to it. But this time I do feel weird. What the heck is wrong with me? Why do I like stuff, expect others to see the brilliance I see, but then see everybody insult the thing I liked? I can take it from the idiot-kind I'm used to, but Bob, I respected you. How can you sink that low? You defend Bioshock with that CRAP and tired story, but you spoil this gem, almost so that people can share in your Cruise-hate and don't go see this movie? WTF?! You never ever did that. Oh but I guess it's fine... you put a "spoiler warning"
I won't spoil stuff... but I'll do what Bob should've done and actually review this movie...
Main character:
I don't hate or like Tom Cruise. More like meh... But in this movie I really liked him. He's a really good actor. I haven't seen other recent movies of his. I'll go do that now. I rooted for him in this movie. His character is smart, passionate and brave. Call me boring, but I wish I was this guy. There are a few wink-winks to his career in the movie. And just like the character, I think Cruise really deserves a chance.
Story:
This is the kind of twisty story that both you and the protagonist understand mostly at the same time. The dialogue doesn't need to UNDERLINE EVERY FRACKING THING. The dialogue is top notch. There are no loopholes. Everything is nicely tied together and everything is there for a reason. I can't discuss more because of spoiling stuff. But grats if you think you've figured out 90% of the story in the first minutes. You're still dead wrong about 10%... and that 10% is what counts, how that 10% plays and is accepted by the characters is what transcends this movie to a really really good Sci-fi. Now, the story is on par with "one good Star Trek episode", but in these days, one good Star Trek episode is badly lacking. I'll have to rate it on par with District 9 and Sunshine, but a bit below Solaris (the new one).
I'll actually make a parallel to Moon. They are similar in many ways. But Moon fucks up the ending (I really expected something much much better from it) while Oblivion shines in the end where it really does shite on stuff like Independence Day (reference intended).
Just in case some people didn't watch Bob's COMPELTE spoiler, well, Bob is dead wrong about the story not making sense. It makes perfect sense, but if you go watch this movie with the "I hate Tom Cruise with his smug old face" attitude, no wonder you're gonna fail to like it. I welcome any discussion on this subject and the simplicity with which I can defuse any opposing argument is downright insulting to the complexity of the story and the detail with witch it's told.
Visuals:
What can I say... No lens flare, yey! It looks splendid. This isn't Minority Report, but it's a post apocalyptic world done right.
Action:
Too much actually. Hey, I've survived Tarkovsky's Stalker, I can take long boring movies without action. Thin Red Line is my number 1 movie of all times so... The long boring first half unfortunately receives the mandatory final battle. It's overkill and doesn't sit that well with the rest of this mostly meditating movie.
The only problem (sort of):
Morgan Freeman. No, really. I love the guy, so the really short amount of screen space he gets actually points to the main flaw of this movie. The movie spends too little time to make us see "the other sides". But if you think about it twice, the entire movie is about Cruise's persona. There is almost no scene without him and we're invited to see with his eyes. His blank memory (you can't choose to decide much AFTER you've got your memory reset, can you Bob?!!!) is actually a good tool for the viewer. We can identify with him so much faster (I sure as hell did when I heard Ramble On). He has no idea what's going on at first, so of course everything is a nasty blur. After he learns the truth he becomes so determined to end things fast that everything else becomes a nuisance for him, again blur. He has shit to do now, no more camping at the lake for him... So while the pace becomes perfect for his character, we're left wanting to see more and learn more, but I bet he wanted it too. In the end his arc become complete so that's all that counts.
The main treat: Victoria. Nice job Bob missing the main thing about her and just how fracking tragic that character is. We only get it towards the end and... wow.
So go see the movie... I can't lie to myself. This movie is gonna sink badly. It's too good. But after it does, don't complain to me about the Star Lens Trek Flare crap you're gonna get from now on.
Best review I've seen in a while from ANYONE. Very nice. Your mini dissertation on Mr. Cruise and his career choices are fascinating.
I did like MI4, but not because of his performance. He was a blank slate in that. Especially at his age, he needs to get back to fascinating roles like he had in Magnolia and drop these empty worthless movies.
Thanks for saving my time and keeping me from seeing this for sure. I was a little iffy till now.
Not on the movie being shallow and bland and not too interesting... but you can't possibly recommend Prometheus over Oblivion.
Oblivion is a movie with issues, but it still has impressive visuals, mostly decent action and a little bit of the spices that made Moon, Event Horizon or hell, even Solaris interesting, if not great. Also, it's an original piece of work, even though it's patched together of story elements we've quite probably seen before.
Prometheus pees and vomits and bleeds all over the original Alien movie. It disrespects everything that came before it, and it does it in a very shallow, carefully planned haphazard way and it totally wastes the talent of the actors involved, making them all look like nincompoops. It also makes Ridley Scott look like a greedy, evil, demented and confused old man.
That's just not nice and should not be condoned or promoted.
For me, I love sci-fi movies but I don't actually go to them strictly for the sci-fi aspect. Rather, the basic differences between future/fantasy/alien societies and human society serves to underscore more general points about humanity, as others have noted long before me.
So, I take Oblivion to be about the love, the lies and fantasies we tell ourselves about our beloved and how that fits into the reality of that person. In that way I take the actual leads of this movie to be Victoria and Julia rather than the (intentionally) nearly empty shell of a man, Jack. Victoria wants desperately to be the love object of a man who eternally has eyes for another, whereas the Julia is the one dealing with the man she formerly loved appearing to have changed in her absence and who has to deal with his present relationship in order to be with him, and thus the two pit Jack against each other in the midst of them figuring it all out.
The ending seems a bit too cake-and-eat-it-too for my taste and I get the feeling that some stuff was cut out to make it PG-13 instead of R-rated, but I really enjoyed the movie and thought everybody turned in just the performance I would want from them in context as well as the movie having a well-executed visual style. That being said, I'd love to see a director's cut for a bit more meat to the violence, perhaps an extended/less Bowdlerized pool or shower scene, etc.
You have near 22,000 and yet you either don't know how to or ignore to use spoiler tags?
As for the movie, I'm skipping it. I debated whether or not to watch the review since it had spoilers, decided to, and then realized that literally every single prediction I had made from the two minute trailer I had seen from months back was spot on. From how it is described, this seems like a movie that rips off the twists and turns of a bunch of other sci-fi movies that do so much better.
If anyone wants to a version of this movie that's actually good, go watch Moon.
On a side note, if they're clones, why would they need to be tricked or have memories of pre-war stuff?
That's not how cloning works. Even if the aliens some how managed to make it work like that, they could still use propaganda to convince them they're doing the right thing. It's not that hard to turn humans against each other.
The only thing this movie's accomplished is remind me that Republic Commandos 2 isn't a thing.
I only ever managed to just muster up a "meh" in response to the existence of this movie, so I wasn't really bothered about having any of the "twists" spoiled. In the trailers, it didn't even really look like the kind of film that would even have twists.
Ah well, this has confirmed it's not a film I'll be wasting nearly 10 quid on to see in the cinema. Here's hoping Elysium manages to do the whole "Earth is basically dead so we (or in that particular case, those who can afford it) have to go live somewhere else" thing better. Which it should.
Regarding MovieBob's last comments about calling Oblivion a pretty looking but nonsensical and illogical and then comparing it to another film, I found it kinda funny to know that both films used the same locations to shoot them.
Well I love it. Maybe I just have a soft spot for visuals, but the movie really does look amazing. The plot isn't watertight, but a few of the points you raised aren't entirely accurate.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Cheers!
